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At the edge of collapse—and creation—two unlikely co-conspirators invite you into a radically honest conversation about the future. This isn’t just another tech or self-help podcast. It’s a story-driven exploration of who we are, what we value, and how we might reimagine the world when the systems around us stop serving us. We blend personal storytelling, cultural critique, and deep inquiry into what it means to be human in an age of AI, uncertainty, and transformation. We’re asking better questions—together.
Because the world is changing fast, but maybe that’s precisely what we need.
Hosted by Beth Rudden and Katie Smith, two builders of systems and challengers of the status quo. Beth is CEO of Bast.AI and a globally recognized expert in trustworthy AI, with decades of experience leading data and ethics at IBM. Katie is the founder of Humma.AI, a strategist who drove innovation and revenue growth at major global brands before turning to human rights and technology for social good. Together, they make complex issues, such as AI and its impacts on everyday people, clear, personal, and impossible to ignore.
Beth Rudden is the CEO and Founder of Bast AI, a pioneering company building explainable, personalized AI for good. With over two decades of experience as a global executive and Distinguished Engineer at IBM, Beth blends anthropology, data science, and AI governance to create tools that amplify human dignity and intelligence—not replace it.
Her work spans healthcare, education, and workforce transformation, using ontological natural language understanding (NLU) to make AI transparent, accountable, and accessible. Through Bast AI, Beth is reimagining how organizations deploy AI that’s not only accurate but aligned with ethical values, cultural context, and cognitive well-being.
Beth is also the author of AI for the Rest of Us and a passionate advocate for AI literacy, epistemic diversity, and the right to understand the systems shaping our lives. She speaks globally on the future of AI, power, and social contracts—and believes we’re all stewards of the next intelligence.
Katie Smith is the CEO and Founder of Humma.AI, a privacy-first platform building community-powered, culturally competent AI. With over two decades of experience leading digital strategy and social innovation, Katie blends systems thinking, Responsible AI, and storytelling to create tools that serve dignity, not domination. Their work spans mental health, civic tech, and digital rights, using participatory AI to make systems safer, fairer, and more accountable. Through Humma.AI, Katie is reimagining how people and businesses engage AI that’s accurate, inclusive, and governed by consent and care. Katie is also the author of Zoe Bios: The Epigenetics of Terrorism, a provocative exploration of identity, trauma, and transformation. They speak globally on the future of technology, power, and justice—and believe human empathy is the intelligence that will define our time.
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Katie Smith (00:15)
Welcome back everyone. My name is Katie Smith and I'm the co-host of And We Feel Fine today. We're going to talk about universal basic income. There's been some mixed results and we want to connect the dots today in a way that I think nobody's done yet. What do you think Beth? How you feeling about today's topic?
Beth Rudden (00:32)
I am really super excited. I'm also very excited that we're going to give a little bit more of some bite-sized chunks. I feel like we often just throw elephants at people, Katie. So I think it's time for us to break it down and make sure.
Katie Smith (00:50)
eat an elephant which is a terrible saying one bite at a time so we're gonna break this down into little bites
Beth Rudden (00:57)
Yeah, that's actually a book during Lou Gershner's era of IBM. He wrote a book called How to Eat an Elephant One Bite at a Time. I know enough background to know that it's also related to a blind person, like a test that people give like two or three, they put blindfolds over two or three people.
Katie Smith (01:07)
Well, you would know that better than anybody.
Beth Rudden (01:24)
and they have two or three people feel different parts of the elephant. And some people feel the trunk, some people feel the legs, some people feel like the skin, and then they try to put the picture together about what they're feeling. And the point is, is that we as human beings often only experience one part of the elephant at the time, and we need to work together to see the whole picture or the elephant in the room.
Katie Smith (01:52)
for what we're about to talk about right now. That is amazing. ⁓ that is, see, this is why we work so well together. Okay, first we just need to know like, what is universal basic income? Do you want to talk about like what it is?
Beth Rudden (02:07)
⁓ Fundamentally, it's and I had a comment on how it's branded, but basically that I think if universal basic income was branded as you get this much income on a monthly basis delivered to you.
by the system of government that you belong to and that you identify as and that you are a contributing member, then everybody would get a universal level of income that allows them to meet their physical and psychological safety needs. When we live in the era right now where
we're all kind of one healthcare disaster away from poverty. It's like, I always like to say, well, what if it was a ⁓ stipend to go travel around the world for six months in your 20s? Or maybe it's a stipend that you get after contributing to your country as a service that you have done for your country or your community.
You know, so I would love for it to be something that does allow people to subsist, but also be part of the community in which they are actually contributing to. So I gave you a little bit of a definition, but also kind of a skew towards where I want it to go, because I think that it has a branding issue of just giving people money to subsist.
is not healthy for human beings. It's not the way that we function in society. And I don't like that just basic definition of, well, we'll just give people money so that they won't be homeless or they won't be experiencing homelessness. Like there's so many other issues that need to be addressed with that.
Katie Smith (04:12)
All right, so many people are saying this is a ceiling. Sorry, it's a floor, not a ceiling, right? Meaning like, what is the problem that people are seeking to solve? Which is, you mentioned it, poverty, housing issues. It's extraordinarily expensive to get housing these days. It's causing homelessness, the lack of housing, the lack of affordable housing, nutrition, proper nutrition, and reduce stress so people can.
Beth Rudden (04:18)
Yes.
Katie Smith (04:38)
focus on going to school and reskilling and all these different things. So a lot of people look at the problem in different ways. And so it's been ⁓ proposed that if we could just deliver this universal basic income, so there's a way, as you described, to give money just ⁓ a check that with no conditions that they can do whatever they want. And there's been some really interesting studies from here in California and Oakland.
Which it does show that people don't stop working. People don't spend the money on frivolous things. They really do spend it on what they need to survive. But of course, it's just like simply not enough and governments can't afford it. And so it begs the question, well, if how do we make this work? Right. Because if AI really is not AI, because it's not, it's not a thing, it's not magic. It's the people who are developing AI are
developing ⁓ products that are going to take away or change blue collar and white collar jobs. It's UBI has been talking about being discussed more and more as a way to provide a solution for all those people who are not going to have jobs, right? And then we talked about the meaning of work and all that different stuff. So the reason why it's not affordable is because it's actually competing with welfare programs.
And so there's like all this debate about, you already have welfare programs and then this is on top of it. It's too expensive. We can't afford both. And, you know, I love that you're imagining, you know, one of the things that I'm imagining is we need to change the social contract entirely. These systems do not serve us. And actually a universal basic income, again, is a floor, not a ceiling, could actually work. But I want to unpack it a little
I want to follow the money. I want to follow the money of like, who is funding this? And I want to understand why they're funding this. And believe it or not, this is entirely linked to AI. UBI is linked to the same people who are talking about compute and that they have to beat Moore's law, that they have to have this extraordinarily high consumption of compute in order to do its best for society.
Beth Rudden (07:02)
well, all right, so let's why is why did you use the term or the phrase? It's a floor, not a ceiling.
Katie Smith (07:12)
Yeah, because we're just, these are people who are just barely getting by. It's like we want to deliver a universal basic income or a check that just barely lets people get by. That doesn't, that's not enough. That is not something that's going to sustain a society.
Beth Rudden (07:30)
So the ability for humans to have time to not subsist like so, like if you're on a subsistence budget where all of your paycheck is going to your bills, that means that you're probably better off than just subsisting, but there's many people who are not. so the...
I think we should be clear, and this is where I would actually really want to do some more research on welfare reform and what welfare is. And one of the programs that I knew growing up that was linked to welfare was called the First Start Program, where it taught moms and dads with children how to do basic nutrition, how to go around
the outside of a grocery store, how to budget, how to learn how to grow food or cook their own food. And so that's the type of subsistence that I understand. But because universal basic income doesn't come with that level of education, it's just money sort of thrown at the problem as opposed to educating people on what it takes
to subsist and to be able to feed yourself and to be able to make sure that your car is brought in on maintenance schedules and make sure your oil is changed and that you have the ability to maintain and be able to accumulate enough wealth for the next generation to be better off than where you started. And I don't think that that's included
in the floor, but I want to make sure that what we're talking about is the same thing. Like, isn't that the floor that we want? Is that people need to be educated on how to be a contributing member of their community and be able to not just subsist, but be able to do better for the next generation.
Katie Smith (09:50)
Well, so from my research, and this is going to be an ongoing conversation, so we're definitely going to keep researching this. You're going to see me reference notes because I've been researching this nonstop since our last conversation. But what I think people have noticed, the people who are actually working on this topic and researching it around the world, is that there are systemic issues at play that keep people in poverty or in positions where they're surviving and not thriving.
And so I think if we're going to deliver a universe, if something like whatever the brand is, if something like universal basic income is going to be the solution because AI is going to change work, it's not enough on its own. And this is exactly my point is that the systemic issues that under that are, you know, that are girding up like, or whatever the right word is, like, you know, are
access to food and housing and learning and, you know, to not feel so stressed that we can actually have joy in our lives, right? You know, not just again, just surviving. We have to fix the systemic issues. So when I think of systemic issues and the people who are closest to the problem are the best at helping to create the solution, this is exactly the opposite of what's happening with UBI right now. And so when you look at the top ⁓
You know, the best examples of UBI, there's an organization called Open Philanthropy. it's backed by tech billionaires and effective altruist donors. So it's really interesting about this number one case study, this work that they did in Kenya.
is ⁓ it did work. It did fix a lot of these issues, but the systemic issues were still there. So it's the floor. They're barely helping people survive. They're not fixing the conditions that put them there in the first place. And so what these effective altruists are basically doing in funding these organizations is what OpenAI is doing. So let me connect the dots. So what is happening?
is that tech billionaires are putting money into these organizations that are based on effective altruism philosophies that then say, okay, based on math, we're gonna send it to these organizations. They are not doing participatory design on the ground. They're not doing community-based participatory co-design and co-solutions. They're just throwing money at the problem to see if they can fix it. And the answer is no, you're not gonna fix it.
Beth Rudden (12:19)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (12:32)
Now, that's very interesting because what do you see with OpenAI? OpenAI has been able to fundraise Just ungodly amount of money based on the idea that what they are doing, they need more more compute. They need to beat Moore's law. They have to go faster and faster and faster so they can get AGI because they think it's best for society.
So they have convinced everybody, us the money because we know that this is going to be best for society. We have the answers. It's the same problem. It's top down. And I'm not the only one who critiques it. ⁓ I'm not going to say their name correctly and everyone knows I'm bad at this, but I'm going to give it a try anyways. But ⁓ Dambisa Moyo, who has talked about this in depth, has basically said it's like death aid.
Beth Rudden (12:59)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (13:28)
is that you're giving aid and it's totally top down. You're not giving autonomy to the people on the ground. You're not listening to the people on the ground. The people closest to the problem are not helping to create the solution. They're just getting aid thrown at them. Now, look, people who need aid are going to accept aid. But you have now these leaders in the global south who are rising up and there's a movement that is rising up that is saying you cannot do top down. Yes, we'll take your money.
Beth Rudden (13:29)
Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (13:58)
Yes,
we'll take your resources, but we want to co-design what that solution looks like because there's systemic issues, right? So that's the top-down stuff that's happening with effective altruism through these organizations, which I believe they think they're doing the right thing. I don't think these are evil people, but the audacity to think that you have the solution for all these people just blows my mind. And I love that there's people who are rising up to be like, no, you don't know the solution. You need to listen to us.
Beth Rudden (14:22)
Thank
Katie Smith (14:28)
And then it's reversed with OpenAI. OpenAI is saying, give us money, give us money, give us the billions of dollars because we have the solution for humanity. And the people who are leading this movement, a lot of them are effective altruists. There's a virus of thinking and it's called effective altruism. And look, there's people who are starting to figure it out and realize, even we were talking about Rutger Bergman who
When we were talking about these issues, he just came out with his book. I think it's amazing we are talking about the same issues when we had no idea what his book is about. But even he is someone who's thought about effective altruism as perhaps a good way forward is recognizing that people on the ground, the people closest to the problem, need to be part of the solution. The solution is not aid. The solution is systemic reform. And so when I think about UBI, we need systemic reform, not just a paycheck that
Beth Rudden (15:20)
Hmm.
Katie Smith (15:26)
barely keeps people surviving. That is not the future I want to live in.
Beth Rudden (15:31)
I mean, always, money is an amplification of who you are and what you do with it. I remember I worked in a jewelry store when I was at Florida State and I worked in Tallahassee, Georgia or Tallahassee, Florida. It's very close to Georgia. And we...
We would see a lot of people who would come in and they would buy large cluster rings, like cluster diamond rings. Those were very, very popular as far as like status to say that I belong to a larger status of people that have more wealth and they wanted to belong to that. That was a symbol. They would literally come in and ask us to cash their welfare checks to buy these diamond rings.
And it was so important to them that they were buying diamond cluster rings and then potentially returning them. But like to be able to fit in and to belong to a higher status. there is, you know, in my career and in my life, the thing that is always triggering for me is this injustice of knowing that
you know, the more wealth somebody that is accumulating, the more the rules don't apply to them or the less they have to pay. And that's where it's interesting with this effect of altruism. There's, I'm sure, a parallel that has happened before. ⁓ I mean, Marx and Engels kind of ring a bell, but like we are we are so far removed from having a populace that has that
level of education of what everybody is doing to get through their bills every day or what things very wealthy people are actually paying for or not or what things are sort of given away as a part of businesses. know, roughly every Lyft driver and Uber driver that I encounter, I'm like, did you fill out a schedule A? Do you know how to make sure?
Your car is amateurized, you know, if you're using your car for work. you know, so all of these things that I think are interesting because I think it gives people more and more ability to kind of build their own business. But all of what I just said is very American. ⁓ When you are in...
Germany or in the Netherlands and everybody has to create their own business in order to be able to even get the tax rebates where they're paying larger amounts of taxes. But in order to get the rebate, they have to open their own business and go through and register and do all of this work to even just get the tax rebates. I find fascinating because the whole thing is
Katie Smith (18:31)
for
Beth Rudden (18:44)
almost inverted of like the American dream in other places might be a way to create more paperwork in government bureaucracy in order to withhold more of the tax money so that the government can then use that. I'm going to go back to what I said in the first place and what I love about what you instantly did that I have not heard from anybody else was
Katie Smith (19:02)
Hmm.
Beth Rudden (19:13)
ask the question, well, how do these effective altruists know what is good for the people who are impacted? Like, how do they know that this is the good thing to do and who are they to say that this is what people need? that just, elitism is not in the conversation about having the people who are impacted in the room.
as you said, and nobody else is talking about that, Katie.
Katie Smith (19:47)
And so many of them are technocrats. So it is relevant to us. It's our people in a way. It's our field who decided to use math to decide what's best for the world, both in terms of how they distribute money and suck up money.
Beth Rudden (19:58)
But it.
But it's not math. It's not even economics of supply and demand. It's not anything more than like a little bit of a superiority on making an assumption. Well, if I just give a bunch of people, if I give a thousand people a thousand dollars, look at what a great, you know, not like, but to be frank, like when I sent the interview
of ⁓ Rutger Bergman to you, I was pretty impressed that there are people who are doing amazing things with their wealth and judging their peers correctly on whether they are doing good things in this effective altruism and being good leaders. And I think that that type of critical analysis is really important. But again, he didn't
talk about like whether some people have the right or how do people believe that they are better than other people, that they know what the situation is so well, know, like how does that happen?
Katie Smith (21:18)
Yeah.
I'm like biting at the bit because I'm like this, this thing gets me worked up. So they really believe like make it as make it make as much money as possible so you can distribute the money. Right. And look, I'll give these folks a benefit of the doubt. think they really are thinking they're doing what's right. I'm not taking that away from them.
what UBI tests have proven overall, almost all of them, I couldn't find one that didn't prove this. The fraud that you talked about with the welfare person going in and using their check to get a diamond, that's like the point zero, zero, zero, zero. Like, it doesn't happen in all of these tests. These people are using this money to actually buy food to, you know,
Beth Rudden (22:05)
Sure.
Katie Smith (22:06)
to do the right things. The fraud is so, so, so, so, so low.
Beth Rudden (22:10)
But
that's not even fraud. To me, that is what a human being needs in order to fit in.
Katie Smith (22:16)
Yeah, look, my mom did it. Honestly, my mom made no money. And sometimes I would be like, where the hell did you get that ring? And she put it on layway because she wanted to fit in with her friends. She wanted to have a nice ring and it meant a lot to her. So I get it. I grew up with a very femi mom that needed these things to fit in with her crowd.
Beth Rudden (22:18)
Yeah.
But Katie, isn't that what we're talking about as far as the underlying conditions and underlying systemic problems is that we have very, we have, ⁓ we have too much disparity between very wealthy people and very poor people, like from a monetary standpoint. And then we have the Keeping Up with the Kardashians named.
exactly as it was intended to be to keep up with the Joneses and to have these families and these oligarchies, you know, ruling the systems and then having lots and lots of staff and people who are supporting these families. That is not good for communities. I mean, that that lends back to.
tribalism and to governance in organizations that can make better choices potentially for those who are part of the family, but there's a part of the family and not part of the family, not part of the government and not part of the government. And so my solution to this is the transparency on where the taxes that we pay goes.
What is funded specifically with the money that I put in and pay taxes? I would say every April, but I'm almost always delayed. But I do try to pay like, you know, the the prepay of the taxes just because I hate being hit with the big thing. But like, where does the money go? What is the government accountable for as far as the tax dollars?
And what are all the other revenue sources? Like what are the costs in the revenue from governments? And like, what are we needing to do in order to make sure that everybody can eat? Everybody has shelter. Everybody has a, you know, a way to contribute to the community that matches their abilities.
Katie Smith (24:54)
Yeah. I mean, I think what we're talking about is like top-down economics in a way. And again, there's plenty of evidence that shows it does not work. Don't give tax breaks to the rich people. And then all of a sudden they're creating more jobs. No, you know what the funny thing is? If you give a poor person money, they pay their bills. You give a rich person more money. You know what they do? They buy more yachts. I'm sorry. There's like, if it was truly transparent, it would be
radical, like we would be shocked. The most, ⁓
Beth Rudden (25:29)
Don't you think that's coming?
Katie Smith (25:31)
I hope so, right? That's what you predicted in the first episode. It's like, you know, each of us.
Beth Rudden (25:33)
Yeah,
think it's coming in a way that we are not prepared for. ⁓ I do think that, you know, I heard a story about ⁓ radicalization and, you know, just this young man was telling me how easy it was to understand how people are radicalized when they're hungry.
And that breaks.
Katie Smith (26:06)
for things and we would all do it if we were desperate.
Beth Rudden (26:10)
It's difficult to hold people accountable for crimes when those crimes of desperation versus crimes of opportunity that are not punished in the same way. Like there's a lot of opportunity to short a stock, to create lots of wealth through dubious
laws that you put in place or that you built the system for. I think that there is a distribution of, mean, you and I both lived through the age of ⁓ marijuana being completely illegal and people going to jail for life, for a ⁓ bag of marijuana. And I don't think they say bags anymore.
Katie Smith (27:02)
⁓ but not COVID.
Yeah. We made out of this, so clearly. I think the feed's out, you know.
Beth Rudden (27:09)
Clearly. Yeah,
there's some some whatever skunk weed. But like I, I think, you know, that that just I remember there was such a correctly so like so many people were tragically incarcerated and then sentenced to
So let's talk about recidivism, like the amount of time that a human being goes between being incarcerated and their next incarceration or their next going back into the system. And some of the statistics that I was looking at at least 10 years ago, it's like 98%.
So you get picked up as a child and you are in the system for the rest of your life unless you are that lucky 2 % that didn't get out of that particular system or didn't get caught up in that particular system. Those are odds that are obviously in other people's favor. And those are things that really change what I would consider right and wrong.
I do have like, I think I have a little bit of sympathy for the people who are trying so hard to do well with their money, but have not had the generational wealth to understand how to be good with your money. So ⁓ one of the biggest studies that I know and something that you can even see on TV is when people win the lottery and
within like a year, two years, it's all just dissipated. mean, hell, Katie, we can talk about how much you pay lawyers to do all these things in order to take the pile of money that you need for your seed investment and how that gets distributed to all of the people who helped you create. I mean, we saw this all over the place, but.
I think that if you look at the lottery winners from me from like a social science situation is when you just give people lots of money, if they don't know how to leverage that money, how to buy assets, how to make sure that they have a distributed portfolio, like that's really difficult. So why would
People just give people universal basic income and think that they are doing a good job. Like that doesn't make any sense and it goes back to why do people believe that they are better than other people? Like what makes them think they know?
Katie Smith (30:04)
Well.
I think what's interesting right now is there's people bringing up this question in the communities that are obviously not being served. The people who are bubbling up from the global south, from these areas where universal basic income has been deployed are saying this isn't the way to fix the problem. The systemic issues, like the war on drugs you just talked about, you know, that was all that did is decimate
the black community primarily. Not just one generation, multiple generations. So when we talk about the boomers who are going to retire and there's going to be this big wealth transfer, do you know how much of the wealth transfer was just sucked out of these communities because of drugs and marijuana? It's ridiculous. That was actually my last project that I worked on at the ACLU national.
Beth Rudden (30:37)
I know, I know.
Katie Smith (31:00)
was a project on marijuana reform and telling these stories of how it's hurt these families. I'd like to say I left the ACLU on a high note. Did you get it? Thank you for that. Social contract, you know, we have to reinvent this. We have to. And so, but right now the people who are controlling the purse strings for a large group of these people.
Beth Rudden (31:06)
Yes. Yes.
Yeah, I got it. ⁓
Katie Smith (31:28)
are coming from this philosophy of effective altruism. And so what I invite people who are listening right now and to people who come onto this podcast, let's talk about this. Let's reimagine what it looks like in the future because if we're talking about systemic reform, what are we really talking about?
Beth Rudden (31:39)
Mm-hmm.
Well, and what do people in, you know, homeless...
Katie Smith (31:54)
And in the new
world, not this world today, because I know what people are working on today, but that it doesn't apply anymore in the future that we're going to have in five, 10 years.
Beth Rudden (31:57)
Yeah.
I think one of the questions that, know, what is work to you, Katie?
Katie Smith (32:12)
Hmm, for me personally.
Beth Rudden (32:14)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (32:16)
You know, I have a skill that I bring to the table, right? From strategy to branding to marketing to communications to product. And to me, work is a privilege to be able to bring that skill to a project like Huma, right?
So work to me right now is humor day in day out. I'm a startup founder and you know what that's like. You never stopped working. You know, I take breaks to take care of my puppy. Thank God for my puppy. She makes me take walks. We had a lovely time yesterday, actually caught a couple of waves. That was good. ⁓ no for work work for me right now in a way feels very privileged cause I've chosen my work. I've jumped into this and I'm like going all in, so to speak.
But I think work from my mom was drudgery. Work from my mom was to go into Rite Aid and to put pricing stickers on products all day long until she got carpal tunnel and had to get surgery. Like, I don't want people to have to do that. Yeah, let a robot do that. I am fine with AI and a robot doing the pricing gun so it doesn't hurt people like my mom. But then what does my mom do? Well.
Maybe what universal basic income would have really done, and I think you spoke to this a little bit, would have been say, hey, Carol, would you like to go back to school to be a teacher, right? To be human in the loop for the teacher, because we know AI is going to go into education too. But people need human interaction. She would have been so good at that. So if somebody had just said, hey, robot's going to take this job now, but we're going to re-skill you to do this other job. And then what does it do? It means that hopefully that job is just not
is not just the floor, which is what she was just like barely putting milk on the table and paying rent every single month. And I saw the stress. And when UBI has done really well, it actually reduces stress. So people again can focus on reskilling. And so is the systemic, like we have to acknowledge the jobs that are going away and they're blue collar and white collar jobs. We have to use this effective altruism
Beth Rudden (34:23)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (34:28)
to identify those jobs and just re-skill these people so that they can put food on the table, so that they can pay for housing, and they can have a little fun. Because a happy society is, what is it, like happy wife, happy life? Happy society, happy life, everyone. You know?
Beth Rudden (34:47)
I think that...
the ability to make music, the ability to make art, ⁓ which is music, but like, you know, the ability to paint or draw or create art, the ability to like dance and, you know, move your body and be a part of, of, there's so much in our history that tells us that that is like,
that is what is being human. Like that is the secret of life and happiness is to have, be in touch with that rhythm and be in touch with something bigger. And I think that we all have affinities. So what I would rebrand universal basic income to is something that would hold people accountable for finding their calling.
in your mom's case, going back to school, you know, in somebody else's case, maybe, you know, doing a stint at a prison to understand how we treat our prisoners or to, you know, write a paper or do a vlog, which I still don't know if I can say that right, V-log, video log of like, you know, giving people an understanding of what's happening in this sort of the measure that we all know.
Katie Smith (35:55)
Thank you.
Beth Rudden (36:14)
of civilization, like you measure civilizations on how you treat your prisoners. Absolutely. Why are those stories not in the news? Good news stories of rehabilitation because we release people early. I think I remember there was some stat where it was like $90,000 a year to imprison a child.
Katie Smith (36:42)
I don't know, the numbers are so dumb. It's so dumb.
Beth Rudden (36:44)
It's
so dumb. I'm like, those are numbers that are pushed out as the revenue that prisons are making. So every child you put into an incarcerated system, that's $90,000 a year of revenue for the people who own that prison.
Katie Smith (37:09)
Yeah, now there's for-profit prisons, which means they're lowering their costs. The treatment is just the worst you can imagine. And in many places like El Salvador, I think is the one that we're sending people to now that the US is sponsoring this. So I think that's a really good point, Beth, actually.
Beth Rudden (37:29)
What I think, if we're gonna distribute the wealth, we should distribute the work. And what I think is interesting about work is that it is different and it should be different for everybody because we're made in ways that we are made to compliment each other. Talk to me about like epigenetics.
Katie Smith (37:56)
epigenetics as it relates to UBI. Well, the thing about what people are trying to solve when you think about poverty and you think about people who are unhoused, you're thinking about the worst imaginable stress, just the absolute worst imaginable stress and what's the number one killer of human beings? It's stress. And so what one of the other positive benefits that could come out of UBI is just the idea that it just reduces the
So the epigenetics is very clear that in generations when we harbor the stress, when we just live day in and day out and then we procreate, we do pass it on to the next generation. I mean, the harm that we have done to the black community, the harm that we are now doing to the Latino community, it's, we are causing biological harm, not just like in the near term psychological, you know, ⁓
issues, we're literally causing biological harm. And that harm actually, and I'm sorry to break it down like this, actually is more expensive over time. You know, because this turns into real medical issues and real, you know, yeah, behaviors that we don't need to perpetuate in society. And we do it by not caring about people enough to like see that this harm is happening and then change it.
You know, and so again, this is why I beg people who are making these decisions that like talk to the people on the ground who are experiencing this harm. They would probably say, yeah, I want that check, but could you help me go to college? Or yeah, I want that check. You know, could you help me show up for my kids or my mom, you know, because they need help. Like, you know, can I get paid to take care of my mom?
Right? And so, or whatever the case may be when people are aging, because that's another big thing that the US is, and the whole world is going to have to deal with. But specifically, the boomer generation is going to get really old on us really fast. And like, so who are we, who's going to take care of these folks?
Beth Rudden (40:08)
Well, I think the... ⁓
if we rebranded or if we thought of universal basic income as preventative and maintenance healthcare plans.
Right? Like, I mean, what if we think about it as like, you know, the amount of money that you need to go back to school or just things that have concrete outcomes that are a little bit... One of the beauties about the promise of AI is hyper-personalization. But in between that is we don't need a one-size-fits-all system. We need people who want to...
be of service in the military, be of service in their community, be of service in their religious institution, be of service to other people that has, we can be more granular on things than we are right now. And it should be like a reciprocal relationship in more of a way that
that doesn't create this massive divide where we now have, mean, does it strike you as such an ironic thing that you have so much wealth being accumulated by so few people that they then think that they need to distribute or they understand how to distribute that wealth to the many people. Like, I mean,
Katie Smith (41:47)
We ⁓
don't know. ⁓
Beth Rudden (41:49)
That's,
that's, that's, you know, why are we allowing that accumulation to occur?
Katie Smith (41:56)
Yes. Why can we just this in this is one of the biggest messages that I hope comes out of this whole podcast season. I'm sure we'll have multiple seasons, but we don't have to choose this actually. So I just want to, I just want to underscore again, what I said about open AI. Open AI is raising hundreds of millions, billions of dollars in valuation based on the idea that they're going to create a better world for all of us.
This is top down at its worst because it actually is going to eliminate jobs, not the magic of AI, people who are making these decisions and the people who are funding it because, and you've said this before, but I'm learning more and more as I read Empire of AI. Like, you know, I've known this, but I think it's like hitting me in a new way, especially coming from you too, that they're trying to get as much compute as possible.
And they want more data centers. think data centers covering the earth would be great because they think it would be good for society. And they're raising money to do it. And not with our permission. We're sort of subtly giving permission by using ChatGBT. We should all stop using ChatGBT.
Beth Rudden (43:14)
I think that the race, it's just, I've never understood why people aren't constantly looking for alternatives. then they're like, but nuclear power, look at what nuclear power could do for us. And I'm like, okay, wait, stop. Let me rephrase that. I don't want...
the wrong people looking for more power alternatives. It reminds me of Tim the Toolman Taylor, who wanted more and more and more power. There was ⁓ a sitcom called Home Improvement, and he was like the burly man who loved power and would install the garbage disposal that had the most power. And I was always like, where's the garbage disposal that has the enough power?
Katie Smith (43:52)
early.
Yeah, it works.
Beth Rudden (44:09)
Right?
Like, I mean, and that's where I think I, and I will not belabor this, but the world of artificial intelligence and the way that ⁓ OpenAI was created and who was chosen for leadership. you know, this is being discussed by journalists. There is a lot of revisionist coming out, like kind of like
amateur revisionists.
Katie Smith (44:41)
our tour right now. He's had like one thing after another now that Empire of AI is really getting the rounds and people are starting to see the truth. You've known the truth. I've been talking about it since 2023. know, it's like it was really easy for me to see it like right away. And then it's just, I don't know, something's been clicking lately. You know, I'm on this kick with effective altruism, which is just to say the people who we know got it wrong are the ones driving AI right now.
The people who don't get effective alteration right, the people who don't do it correctly are the ones driving AI and compute and every prompt is a swimming pool and like, and they're just going to build more data centers because they think they're doing what's best for society. I don't trust them to do that. They don't know how to participate or collaborate with others.
Beth Rudden (45:11)
Well, I've...
That's the good thing about totalitarian regimes. don't often work in teams of people, you know, but Katie, this is not news. Like this is just simply the same problem. it is really, I mean, it is our fault in so many ways because we have just abdicated the understanding of our government to
people who don't no longer want to understand the government and they just want to do it better and they don't want to know why it works the way that it works. And you know social workers, I know social workers. And when you are a social worker, you are not really considering how much compute an AI, you don't want to use an AI. If you are in a place
where you know that the entire systems are not built for you because you are a black woman or anybody else in America than a very wealthy white man.
how do we keep, like, just allowing other people to define our future? And how do we raise up enough people past physical and psychological safety and a sense of belonging so that they too, we can have a lot more people creating our future and a lot more people thinking about what our future could be because
Again, the people who are in charge right now, their ideas of the future are terrible. Are terrible.
Katie Smith (47:11)
are scary. don't want
that. The average person does not want that. If you pull the average person, you tell them, well, here's Sam Altman who blew you in the world. Would you like to live in that world? No.
here, so I bring it back to finances as I do. I actually believe if we can get this right, if we can evolve capitalism, if we can evolve effective altruism, that we actually create a stronger middle class, which creates more revenue. So if we're just talking about the United States and we're talking about the revenue of the future, you need a strong middle class.
You need people who are actually paying their fair taxes, right? And to your point, transparency about how many jobs are you actually creating if you're gonna get a tax break, right? Like let's know, age of transparency. So what I'm actually saying is this is gonna make our country healthier because we'll have a solid revenue source. We will not be dependent on revenue from one, two, three, whatever, the fang.
the, you know, the, own G7, which is companies in the United States, which is like, you know, OpenAI and Apple and Google and Facebook and Amazon and who am I missing? There's like in video app, right? That's right. So there's like, do we want, that's right. So do we want the revenue for our country to come from these, these companies? Yeah. Citizens United totally.
Beth Rudden (48:27)
in the video.
Palantir.
Katie Smith (48:40)
went sideways, just for the record, sorry, quick sidebar. I was at the ACLU when they actually wrote an amicus brief for Citizens United. Blew my mind. I think it was one of the worst decisions that the ACLU ever did. They were protecting themselves. It was a really bad decision. I love the ACLU, but Citizens United is a nightmare for us because they're a personhood. You brought this up before, but we still have power as voters to not give them
the rights to define what the revenue for the United States looks like for our kids and for our grandkids. We need people to be the revenue source. We need everyday people, middle class people. And know, UBI is supposed to bring people who are in poverty up to the middle class. Great, let's focus on that. Every system we should design should be about the middle class. And I'm not a socialist at all. I'm developing a California benefit corporation that actually creates profits.
you know, we bring profit backs and we bring profit back in a really interesting way. And I think it's an evolution to capitalism, but I'm not saying kill capitalism. I'm not saying kill effective altruism. I'm not even saying that I'm just saying we get to reinvent it now, you know, the freedom to build a business, the freedom to not have to stress about surviving so that we can, you know,
Be creative and who knows what beautiful way. What comes out of that will be extraordinary.
Beth Rudden (50:08)
Well, how about we just elect or cancel leaders who elect leaders who do what they say and cancel leaders who are not. And this is such an interesting world that we're living in where we're like, yeah, but I'm already so invested in this company and like, you know, pulling out at this position.
I think they're going to go up a little bit more. I'll just keep on my position because it's disconnected from what people are doing on a daily basis. so if you're invested and you have a portfolio and you have a 401k and that 401k is a set of index funds and you don't really know and don't have time to do all the research of where those index funds are.
That is what AI is going to reduce the friction. So you will have companies that are going to be able to say, well, actually, this entire set of index funds is really just a part of Palantir. Are you sure that you want to invest in them? Do you remember, ⁓ I'm sure you were like ESG, the environmental social good, like the ESG indices.
Katie Smith (51:25)
Mmm.
Beth Rudden (51:34)
What we can do with AI and what I know companies who can do it is they're monitoring the world's news to look at whether companies are actually doing what they say they're doing. And so when you do have, you know, journalism and people who are doing this research and are able to put this research forth, I think that it is just better and easier in life to kind of do
Katie Smith (51:46)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (52:04)
Try to do good by being good and be good by doing good. And if that makes you kind of a contrarian investor, great. Be that contrarian investor, but be aware. Yeah.
Katie Smith (52:16)
Yeah, yeah, because you're
not going to make a buck if you buy like Nvidia now. I don't believe that. I'm not giving advice, but I don't believe that. You know, so it's an opportunity to invest in real growth, you know, and real growth is on people. Real growth is a focus on everyday people and their businesses and companies like Bast So.
Beth Rudden (52:22)
Yeah, well.
And
companies like Huma, like we are building what we want to build in a way that we are out loud and proud about the values that we have for our business and our people and what we want to do for human beings that want to use our products. And I think that that is, as you said before, not just a privilege, but it's a way to reinvent
how we work together and how we can be more human.
Katie Smith (53:16)
my name is Katie Smith. I am the CEO and co-founder of Huma. We are developing a social network with no ads, no subscriptions, no upsells. Just a delightful experience that is secure and private and connects you with real community. When you consent, you create empathetic AI. And this is the data that we believe could change the world. Learn more about it at huma.ai. And I'm the co-host of And We Feel Fine
Beth Rudden (53:40)
Hi, my name is Beth Rudden, and I am the co-host of And We Feel Fine, as well as the CEO of Bast.ai. we build full stack explainable AI software so everyone can build their own explainable AI using their own data, keeping that fully secure and safe for their own use and benefit.
Katie Smith (53:58)
Like, subscribe, smash the restack. I don't know. We're on Spotify. on iHeart.
Beth Rudden (54:05)
I don't think we smashed the restack. I think we just restack.
Katie Smith (54:12)
I like the idea that there's a button. ⁓ Please, please support, please comment. We'd love to hear from you.
Beth Rudden (54:19)
Thank you.