Transcript
Algorithmic auditor Cathy O’ Neil on how Big Data impacts our lives (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Mon Mar 9, 2026
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It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.
You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.
It's news and culture without the noise.
Yeah, come on!
Here's Pete Schwabba.
Dude.
And Greg Bach.
Dude!
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nightlight.
I am Pete Schwabba, sitting just across the state from Mr. Greg Bach.
We are just a couple of dudes on this Monday, bringing you a little light into your ever approaching, but lighter later night.
Greg, how are you?
I'm doing quite well.
I'm feeling good.
It's a Monday.
We're here.
Can't get away from it.
Can't get around it.
Just finishing some dinner finishing some work and now I'm with all of you all tonight and I'm very excited about that I
always say I don't know what to do with myself sometimes on the weekends So I actually like weekdays.
I know that sounds crazy, but it's great to be on the air talking about things that are interesting and fun
Dom Lee in Madison, work in the board.
How are you doing tonight, buddy?
Those are foraged, including the packaging from nature.
you know.
It's just like a lot of food talk right in the first
couple of minutes.
I like it.
I mean, I have a bag of avocados right here.
They aren't ripe, so you can't eat them.
Oh, that's the worst.
You ever try to eat a not ripe avocado like you just smashed the heck out of it?
It still just doesn't taste.
It just hurts your jaw.
Here's what I'm dealing with tonight, guys, on this Monday.
I went and got a well-deserved matured haircut today.
And my beautician, barber, whatever you want to call her, cut my sideburns off.
Before I can say anything, she just went, and I'm like, wait a minute.
This is like our fourth time together.
That was an oversight.
Now I feel like I'm in college.
I've got nothing here above the ear.
It just is bare all the way down.
Did you really say something new or did you just did you do it and you let it go?
I didn't say anything to her.
I just assumed I have sideburns.
She's one of these people who is lovely.
I really like her, but she gets going on a story and it's just
my sideburns of the victims.
And you know, they weren't like Elvis sideburns, but they they they shaped my face, Greg.
They'll be back before you know it.
It's fine.
They grow back.
So that's my that's my downer news of the day, but it's great to see you guys.
Downer news.
Well, it's only five o'clock.
But we got a great show tonight, Greg, don't we?
We have an absolutely amazing show for everyone tonight.
Let's see here.
Later on the program in a little bit, actually, we'll be playing and we'll be talking to Kathy O'Neill O'Neill, who's the author of weapons of math.
MATH destruction, talking about the dangers of big data.
And then the second hour, we're going to be talking to a friend of yours, Tim Sowers, who's the co-CEO and chief artistic experiences officer.
That's a long title at the overture center.
Here's lots going on.
We're going to have, we're going to have some big stories coming up in just a moment, but Pete, I think it may be time for the question of the night.
Are you serious?
I'm
dead serious.
I am dead serious about the question of the night.
Go baby, go Dom.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay, question.
Question.
Question.
Question.
Domanda.
Question.
Question.
Alright guys, here we go.
What is the greatest live show you've ever seen?
That is tonight's question of the night.
And it's kind of an honor.
We tried to pair it with Tim Sowers being here because that's
what
they do at the Overture Center.
They put on live shows and they're outstanding.
So what is the greatest live show you've ever seen?
Phone lines are open.
Text line is open.
As always, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five.
Civic, you can also text us on the Civic media app.
Very easy to use and a great way to be part of the show.
And if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook or ex Twitter, give us a drop us a stream comment and we'll read it on the radio.
Be part of the show.
Be part of Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
It's always great when you guys participate.
Does it have to be a music show?
It can be theater.
It can be anything, whatever, live show.
Perfect.
All right.
Great.
Yeah.
A lot of way here.
There you
go.
It'll be fun.
I've already got my answers, guys.
I'm not trying to be like a teacher's pet or anything, but I'm
ready.
Aren't you the teacher?
You're the one who posed the question.
I'm
my own best friend.
There you
go.
I'm my
own best dude.
Um, but we've got, we've got stories, Greg.
We got
I was going to say what, okay, you go because you went, all right.
Well, I, I kind of, I know we have a, they're all big and they're all.
A lot of them are local.
So, uh, and that's Eagler, a conservative Supreme Court justice.
Uh, and I'll say she will not seek reelection in 2027.
Greg, that's a big, that's a 20 year run for her as she's been in the, in the seats since, uh, on the bench since 2007.
Uh, here's my issue.
And I, I don't think people ever need to say this.
She's saying it's time for her to step away so she can spend more time with her family.
Yeah.
I mean, okay.
We just kind of assume people are going to do that, but you get that a lot from athletes, celebrities.
I need to spend more time with.
No, you're done.
You just want to retire.
You don't really even have to say that.
You've been on the bench for 20 years.
I think that's all we need to know.
I always think it's just a throwaway excuse.
Yeah.
You know, I mean,
Look, I'm sure the job of Wisconsin state Supreme court justice is a busy one, but I don't imagine that it's a job where you're like, I'm coming home late from the office tonight.
I got to go on that, that Supreme court justice trip.
I'm going to be out of town for two weeks selling the Supreme court.
Um, I mean, honestly to 20 years is two terms.
That's good.
Move on.
You don't need to get on that.
Um,
And that is, I mean, that is, uh, we last year, Rebecca Bradley was expected to run again and she, she dropped out, uh, within a few months of last year's election.
So we have a Supreme court race election coming up next month in a few weeks.
And it's an open seat between Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar.
And it looks like we'll have an open seat next year as well.
Then too, we got, yeah, we have after next year.
There will not be another Supreme Court election until, oh no, 2020.
No, we have one every single year.
Oh my goodness.
So this year, next year, 28, 29, 30.
Yeah, it's just going to keep going.
Oh my goodness.
Hey, Netherlands.
Am I right about that?
Have liberals won the last four seats?
They've won the last three.
Oh,
okay.
Yeah, they won the last three.
Well, Janet pro say what's won two years ago Susan Crawford one last year Chris Taylor is pretty popular.
I don't know how it's gonna go.
I mean, like, I feel like this time last year
I mean, last year it was crazy because Elon Musk was throwing $100 million into the race itself.
Like we're like, it is the state
of Supreme court
races.
It
did
nothing.
It told that man to go home to your weird looking ugly cars.
But yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a liberal, it's, it's a liberal run court.
As some would say, I just think it's people who vote their conscious based on the facts, but that's, you know, whatever.
But also it is all women except for Brian Hagedorn.
I mean, that's, we
have that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a, that's pretty amazing.
If you ask me.
So yeah, there's a, so there's that.
There will be another open race next year for state Supreme court.
We're not even done with this one yet.
And we're already talking about next year.
Good gravy.
That is insane.
And this next race though is going to be interesting.
Chris Taylor, Marielle Lazar, as you said, the classic Madison versus a Western Milwaukee suburbs or Waukesha County.
And I think as Marielle Lazar said, she is a
and not let people take liberties with the Constitution.
That's not what I'm talking
about.
That would be interesting.
How, how vague and really nothing.
Hmm.
Boy,
boy,
boy.
I'm not going to take liberties with the Constitution.
Okay.
Well, the guy in the White House is a Dr. Him.
Yeah.
Man.
All
right.
All right.
We crushed that one, Greg.
We did great.
I mean, cheese, cheese, hit it out of the park.
Cheese and rice.
I think it's right
already done.
Yeah.
big story.
What do you think, buddy?
Do we go?
Scott Fitzgerald?
Let's do that.
Yeah.
Scott Fitzgerald.
Congressman Scott Fitzgerald was in the news.
He was told upfront, which is a WISN, like local talk show, kind of like a meet the press, but for WISN here in Milwaukee, White House likely to see more funding for Iran war quote any day.
So I guess it's a war.
We're calling it a war.
But I love this story.
We'll put this in the show notes.
This is on WizPolitik's U.S.
Representative Scott Fitzgerald.
He says, the White House expects soon to ask Congress for more money for the Iran war, quote, any day.
We had an open discussion about it within our own conference with Speaker Johnson.
Fitzgerald said on WISN's 12, 12s upfront.
And it proved, I like here it says,
I really don't have the type of intel or knowledge.
I don't think any rank and file member of Congress would have that information to be able to say one way or the other, whether or not they would be able to support that.
And then it goes on to say, he goes on to say, and certainly with the air superiority, which we already gained, which is amazing to me how quickly that was able to happen, that certainly wouldn't, doesn't warrant it.
He doesn't know anything about it, but he loves what's happening.
Yeah, it's so weird too that like Congress never approved a war.
No, you know, we were sort of circumvented.
So it's like, well, is it just like a rubber?
Did they just give him whatever they want now?
I mean, he's catching
us
on deal.
We're getting
money.
Just tell us what you need, even though you didn't come to us first and get the okay to go to quote war unquote.
So yeah, really weird situation.
Absolutely.
And so, uh,
Scott Fitzgerald, I guess, you know, according to him, yeah, they're just gonna do it.
I mean, he says, quote, I'm not going to pretend I have firsthand knowledge of troop movements because it's not something that's typically briefed to members of Congress until it's actually happening.
I know there are troops, good job, in both the Army Reserve and in the Guard.
And you have to remember the Guard typically still
The guard typically still are those with the weapons systems.
It's seriously he's he's talking about what he knows about his old job because he was in the National Guard the Wisconsin National Guard I'm sorry the US Army reserve my apologies.
He was in But he doesn't know anything other than that All I know is that the president dropped bombs on Iran with Israel didn't ask Congress and now Congress is like yeah, we're not gonna do anything about it.
Give him money.
It's fine.
Go ahead.
It's fine
Yeah, it's it's strange times we live in I know Tammy senator Tammy Baldwin weighed in and said that you know reminded everybody that Trump ripped up the nuclear the Iran nuclear deal and Part of the reason we might be in this situation.
So yeah, it'll be interesting and I know over the weekend Greg Carolyn Levitt the press secretary mentioned that the president is keeping options open like sending in ground troops.
What?
And she got pressed on that and it's like they're just sort of supporting whatever and I guess that's their job.
He's their boss, but crazy.
Well,
you support and protect the Constitution.
What they're doing is supporting the president and protecting the president and worshiping the president as a king.
That's a big, big difference.
Huge, huge difference.
Yeah, but more to come with that in the coming days as this war, not war is being settled on.
So before we get out of here, let's go into the third story then.
The third.
big story oil prices going up gas prices going up according to triple A jumps jump at the pump as national average goes up nearly 27 cents.
It was it's now 347 to 48 throughout the country according to triple A oil prices are going up because what's happening Iran and you're all feeling at the pump.
We talked about this yesterday Pete I said that this time last week gas was $2 and 40 cents.
Right.
Then it became $2.99.
It's $3.19 now.
And I just
thought, I think it was a rep from GasBuddy or someone I was listening to earlier said, gas is expected to hit $4 a gallon on average nationally.
That means
probably
what?
$4.25 in Milwaukee, $3.50 here, $5 in Chicago or LA or whatever.
It's $5 in California right now.
Wow.
Yeah, that's weird.
I mean, what we just said about the Supreme Court race, it's got Fitzgerald.
People probably are like, oh, yeah, OK, interesting.
What?
$100 a barrel.
That really affects people.
And I just filled up today.
And last week, it was less than $20 to fill up.
I have a little hybrid.
And then I have a gas guzzler.
But the hybrid, it was less than $20 to fill up.
And today, it was well over $20.
All because of the Saran War that we are somehow in not in.
I don't know.
Is it a war?
Who knows?
Don't ask Congress.
Nope.
No.
All right.
So we are coming right back, ladies and gentlemen, with our first guest of the night, Kathy O'Neill, author of Weapons of Math.
math, Greg, destruction.
It's going to be a lot of fun, and we will be back right after
that.
This is Pete Schwabba, and right back on Nightlight on the 7th Media Nesting.
Welcome back to Nightlight.
I am Pete Schwabba, sitting across the state from my co-host, Mr. Greg Bach.
It is great to have you with us tonight on the Civic Media Network.
Our next guest has a PhD in math and is the author of Weapons of Math Destruction.
How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy.
And in 2022, the book The Shame Machine, who profits in the age of humiliation.
She's also the founder of Orca,
O'Neill risk consulting and algorithmic auditing.
You must have very busy days.
It is my pleasure to welcome our guest, Kathy O'Neill.
Hi, Kathy.
Hi.
Nice to meet you, Pete.
Nice to meet you as well.
That's Greg Baca sitting across from us.
Hello.
It's great to have you here.
Let's start with, let's just jump in and ask you about weapons of math destruction.
Love the title.
Thank you.
It's one of those books I had to read a few of the passages about three times to fully grasp what you were saying, which means it's probably a really good book.
So please tell us about this weapons of math destruction.
Oh, okay.
Well, it's a book that came out 10 years ago, almost like September 2016 that I wrote
basically as a call to arms for the public to start worrying about Technology and in particular the role of algorithms making secret decisions about our lives and I identified a bunch of like I was actually a blogger back in the day now my podcast are obviously but back in the day I back in the day I had a blog called math babe and I would just you know
Talk about having worked in finance and all the regrets and embarrassments about that and i joined occupy wall street and i was working as a data scientist to like you know make a living living in new york city with three kids and.
My blog like the people my reader is the blogger readers were so wonderful and i would start you know i started this kind of running list of creepy algorithms i call them.
And they supplied me with more and I was like, oh my God, there's just a ton of creepy algorithms.
And they all are potentially extremely powerful to ruin people's lives.
I sort of developed a taxonomy of them and eventually came to the concept of a weapon of math destruction.
So I wrote a book about them.
And, you know, as you saw in the book, like it basically is
in every at every moment that a person's life touches bureaucracy, whether that's like getting into college or getting a job or getting in a mortgage or, you know, almost at any moment when you hit a bureaucracy, you're being evaluated by an algorithm.
Well, and I think that's, you know, that's a word.
The word algorithm is something that's come so much into the zeitgeist over the past few years and people try to
quantified in various ways.
But like, as you said, I mean, they're, I mean, just from the fact that like, it doesn't even have to be getting a mortgage or signing up like going to college.
I mean, if I just open a rewards account at a grocery store, they've got my information that goes in an algorithm.
They send me like, we are just thrown into it no matter what you're in it, regardless of whether you try or not because it's everywhere, correct?
Yeah, you could think of it and that's a great example like if you get like a card at a grocery store and they collect the data on what you're buying and then they send you coupons that are directed to try to get you to buy slightly more of slightly more expensive things It's like a one-way mirror.
I want you to think of it that way like it's a one-way mirror of like them looking at us And try to figure out how to extract more money from us and like the actual way they do it
is through algorithms, because they're trying to predict things.
They would call them predictions.
But the truth is there's a lot of power in those predictions.
They actually don't just predict the future, they cause the future.
And when they're predicting you, they're not just predicting what you're going to do, but sort of pushing you and nudging you towards those things in a really very potent way.
In your book, in this book, Weapons of Math Destruction, you say it's dedicated to all the underdogs.
Who are the underdogs and are there underdogs in particular that this book is dedicated to?
Yeah, I mean one of the things that I learned pretty quickly when I was starting studying this actually I was a data scientist when I wrote this book, right?
So I was doing this actually in the context of of travel I was working at a ad tech company That is no longer in business because it was a terrible idea
But it was like deciding who deserves what kind of ads in the world of travel, whether that's hotels or flights or whatever.
And one of the things I realized almost immediately when I started doing this, because it wasn't that different from the kind of work I had done, trying to predict the futures market when I was a hedge fund quant.
So it's just predicting people instead of...
markets.
It's actually a lot easier to predict people.
They're much more predictable.
By far, the biggest statistical signal I was searching for was wealth.
I was just looking for people with money.
That's just a fact about online interactions.
What most data is being collected about you to find out
what you have money, whether you have money and what you're going to spend it on.
But secondarily and tertiary, like what we're looking for is your wealth, your gender and your race.
And one of the things that, you know, those are three really easy things to figure out about someone, it turns out.
And people are profiled based on those, you know, those are, you know, not that many options in those various three different dimensions.
And we're all being boxed into these profiles and we're being given what they think we deserve.
And so when I say underdogs, I'm really talking about the people that are on the short ends of those sticks.
Let me just tell you a story, which I think is in the book.
When I was working at that ad check company, one of the investors came and gathered us around him and said what his future of the internet would be.
And he's really, like, if you think of a VC, he's like a venture capitalist, they're architects of the space that we live in online.
They decide what happens and what doesn't happen.
They fund it or don't fund it.
And his vision was, you know, I'm gonna see ads for trips to Aruba and jet skis.
And I'm never, ever, ever again gonna have to see a University of Phoenix ad because that's not for people like me.
And like, people around me laughed.
I was like, oh, like why would a rich white man be like preyed upon by a for-profit college?
A rich educated white man.
That's the fourth thing.
How educated are you?
Whereas like, and I was like, I was curious about that.
You know, I was like, oh, I've never seen a University of Phoenix ad, but I looked it up.
And at that, even in that quarter that he came to talk to us, that quarter, Google ads,
That was the single biggest Google ad sale was to University of Phoenix.
We are coming right back after this very short break with our guest Kathy O'Neill.
Don't go anywhere.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.
Welcome back to Nightlight.
I'm Pete Schwabba, joined by my co-host Greg Bach.
It is great to have you with us tonight.
Dom Lee working the board.
We are learning a lot tonight about math and algorithms and all kinds of stuff that is being put into layman's terms by our current guest.
She has a PhD in math and is the author of weapons of math destruction.
How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy.
Kathy O'Neill joins us over the stream.
You know, we see these ads come through our social media and you said, you said they said we want to give them what we think they want.
How strong are
people at resisting, or do they, I mean, do they eventually, if they see, if the algorithm is used correctly for the folks who are advertising, is there a way for them, do they just say, just wait it out, you set them enough ads, they will, they will at the very least check it out.
So say, even just going to University of Phoenix to check out courses, the clicks, the engagement is also what they're looking for.
How strong are these formulas that really just keep getting at people until they finally just,
Bend and break and go and do the thing they want them to do.
Yeah, those is for profit colleges.
And I'll add another category of predatory ads, which is like payday lending.
Now, to be clear, they only get shown when somebody says like, I want to go to college or like, I need a loan, you know, like it's so it is like a response to something at least back in the day when it was like a Google search, right?
But those things were among the most expensive.
eyeballs.
They would be paid $10, $20, $50 for a click.
What does that mean?
That means that it was a very, very good rate of stickiness.
Once you got the click, you got the person.
They follow you up with phone calls and emails, and they would really do the hard sell.
I read some of the, like, Corinthian College,
Advice to the recruiters and they even said like you should use phrases like don't you want your children to have a better life than you have it was like absolutely predatory So that was kind of like how they got their hooks in you was the ad the ad tech space and again the ad tech space Back then and still does like like very Crucially rely on this profile of you as like how educated how rich like what your race?
What's your gender?
And many, many more things by this point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I played football at Corinthians for two years and then I blew out my knee.
But
so how do we, it's funny, Cathy, because, you know, we say something in our house and we don't realize what's listening.
If it's Alexa or Siri, but moments later, we get ads on the internet.
Where is our information?
If you know this, where is it going?
Does it go to some portal?
Or is it join an algorithm of some sort?
How do they do that so quickly?
Yeah, well, I mean it goes to Amazon if you're using Alexa.
I mean, we all think of Amazon as like a thing that started out with books and it sells this and it sells that and it sells this.
I don't want you to think of it as a seller.
I want you to think of it as like a middleman that has
eyes on us the people that purchase and eyes on the producers it really has stuck itself inside in between it's like you know you imagine like a marketplace where we go buy things from people that make things.
That would be like a really old fashioned idea where you go to an artisanal crafts.
Market and like buy stuff from the people that made it.
It's like the opposite of that is like how far can you get from that, right?
Because I can I could if I explain this to you and it would take a little while but if I explain it to you long enough you'd feel sorry for both the buyers and the sellers on the Amazon screws both up that they had like they have basically surveillance systems on both in both directions, right?
So they managed to screw the people selling on Amazon
in part because whenever they see a better opportunity, they jump in and do it, right?
They will sell their own products because they're like, oh, look, this is a high profit margin enterprise.
And how do they know that?
Because they have so much surveillance.
But also, they screw their supply chain very, very tightly.
Now, you could say, oh, this is great for the buyers, but it's actually not true.
Think about this.
And I did this experiment with somebody recently.
We at the same time searched for exactly the same thing on our different Amazon accounts.
And she is a student, by the way, like a law student.
I'm like a professional.
So the Amazon, and I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon.
Amazon knows a lot about me.
They know I have money and they know I'm really like efficient.
So I just click and then take the first thing pretty much.
So we both searched for a beanbag chair and the first
beanbag chair I got was $188 and the first beanbag chair she got was $88.
And I couldn't find the one that she got by scrolling.
Once she like shared her screen and I actually could like search for exactly the same item, I got it.
But my point being that like they don't need to like price differential for me.
Like they don't need to have the same product with a different price.
They don't do that.
They tried that.
They got in trouble for that.
But they just pollute my atmosphere with the stuff they want me to buy.
Just imagine it like this.
It's so virtual.
But imagine going into an actual store and as you're going in, they're building the store.
And they're choosing the things they want you to see at eye level in the first aisle so that you walk in, you get to see what they want you to see.
That's how I feel about the Amazon thing.
So they managed to
get me to pay $100 more for a beanbag chair, even as they're making the beanbag chair manufacturers like almost go out of business.
It's quite a grift that they have going on.
Well, that's something you use the Amazon example.
I find very interesting because this past week, and I saw not maybe no less than six or seven times on streaming networks, how when you shop at Amazon, 60% goes to small business.
Like they want, Amazon really wants you to believe that you are just going into the digital version of a farmer's market or a maker's market when really what you're doing is going into their surveillance system.
Greg, thank you for mentioning that.
I almost, I threw up in my mouth when I saw that.
that same thing.
And I was
like,
Oh my God.
Yes.
Amazon, you are actually screwing these, these small manufacturers.
Like, thank you for making that look like it's a nice quaint thing.
Yeah,
it's not.
It's not
quaint.
Yeah, I had, I had some friends I've had, I've had a few friends work at Amazon in various positions.
Two of them worked in the warehouse and had exact
the exact experience you expect.
And then two others worked in higher positions.
And they were like, I don't know what people are talking about.
And within a year and a half, everything we're talking about, the surveillance, the rules, the overbearing everything of that company trying to know you and keep you locked in, they left because like, oh, it just took us a while.
But this company, it's like, I mean, it's like surveillance with a nice little store in front.
I mean, it's, and I,
I don't say that saying, oh, to heck with Amazon.
I just had an Amazon package delivered this morning.
Totally addicted.
Totally addicted.
But I mean, I think that what leads me to my next question is, the algorithm's not going away.
Right.
If you have the money or the wherewithal to, quote, get off the grid, go for it.
But how does one say, all right, how do I curate my algorithm?
How do I look at me inside the algorithm?
How do I keep myself safe?
And just understand that, yes, if I go look at handbags, I'm gonna get a ton of handbag ads.
Just how do we operate within the algorithm to keep ourselves sane?
Yeah.
Man, I really wish I had a good answer
that.
really
do.
I was thinking about it because it's like, take yourself out of the grid.
You can't really do that, right?
can't, like you personally might be able to do that, although you're always going to be in cameras if you go to a store, right?
But what even those stores are going to be, like they're starving the stores, right?
Amazon
shopping is starving the stores.
They're not going to last that much longer.
There's something called like,
predatory pricing where just like companies sort of make their prices lower than their competitors until their competitors wither and die.
And I feel like Amazon is doing that to all stores in the country at all times, essentially.
It's an incredibly massive play.
And at the end of it, it's going to
it's going to work.
I don't know how to keep it from working.
But to go to earlier question, Pete, that you asked is where does that data go?
The truth is it doesn't all go to Amazon.
Alexa stuff does.
A lot of the data that I allow to be surveilled and collected about me goes to Google because I have an Android instead of an iPhone and I use Gmail.
It's going to these massive big tech companies.
They're all using that to improve their algorithms, right?
So every you know, it's been interesting to for me to watch AI You know how like for example when you do a Google search Gemini often answers you that's like such an amazing loss for them
You know, if you think about the billions of dollars they're losing in ad revenue by allowing you to look at the Gemini answer instead of clicking on an ad, like that's how they make money clicks, right?
So they're not making money when they answer your question with Gemini.
What are they doing though?
It must be worth it to them or they're not doing it.
What they're doing is collecting your data.
know, and that means that that's a way of measuring how worthwhile your data is.
And in this case, it's like the interactions with the large language model data is what I'm talking about.
But that's like a huge play that they're doing there to try to sort of dominate the large language model space because like open AI had a head start.
But just I wish somebody would do that calculation.
I don't have quite enough information, but somebody does of how much money they have lost by having Gemini answer so many of those questions.
Well, and that was actually gonna be my next question, but yeah, that's something that they have to, I mean, they make so much money that a loss can't be that important to them because they make it up in so many, any other places.
And we're talking a lot about shopping and social media and those things that we can all, we've all had conversations at lunches or brunches about like, oh man, I was talking about this thing and then boom, boom, boom, there are a bunch of ads.
That's all something we know on a day-to-day basis.
And I'll take it darker because we're talking about big data, but when we go beyond the Amazons and the Googles and all that, what else is being done with our information via the algorithms that goes to maybe even a darker place that's more harmful for society, ourselves, wherever we live?
Yeah, well, I mean, so yeah, going back to the question of opting out, like you might be able to buy fewer things and never buy anything on Amazon, but you're not going to be able to opt out of like,
ever getting car insurance or a mortgage or unless you're independently well if they you can maybe get avoided a mortgage or going to college or getting a job or being evaluated at your job or heaven forbid if you get arrested like being evaluated by a recidivism risk algorithm by it with in the courtroom there's all sorts of algorithms that what I what I mean to say is like they're not opt opt out they're just not
Like if you want to get a job nowadays, you're going to be subject to algorithmic gaze.
And there's no reason in my experience to think that is a particularly wise, like a wise gaze.
It's a very, very random, slight, slightly racist sexist thing, you know?
And when I say slightly racist and sexist, like this stuff is just codifying, you know, what has happened in the past.
You know, at best, sometimes it's kind of a random number generator.
I kind of almost like those because at least they're fair.
But most of the time they're like trying to say like, oh, people like you got hired in the past.
So we're going to give you a shot, you know?
And it's like, oh, do you think that sounds like the best possible way of figuring out the most productive worker?
Because I don't
know.
This is fun, Kathy.
You're awesome.
Thank you for if you get, if your bluegrass group ever goes on tour, does some shows?
Let us know.
Seriously.
Can't wait.
Yeah.
That would be really, really fun.
What's the name of the group again?
It's called the five year
plan.
And what's the name of your podcast?
It's called the AI skeptics and
it's
really fun.
I hope, I hope some of your listeners join us.
Absolutely.
Check out.
Yeah.
Seriously.
Check out the podcast.
Check out the band.
I'm going to check it out now because I love bluegrass music.
So thank you so much, Kathy, for being here.
Thanks for having you guys.
Thank you, Kathy.
Keep up the great
work.
All right.
When we come back after this very short break, we're going to tell you about a Wisconsinite who might get his own statue.
This is Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on Nightlight on the Civic Media Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Welcome
back.
I'm Pete Schwabba, sitting across the stage from Mr. Greg Bach.
How we doing guys?
I'm doing very well.
Thank you
very much.
Tom, how you doing?
You hanging in there?
I'm hanging in there.
I'm doing pretty good.
Yeah.
Thank you for asking.
Outstanding.
This is Nightlight with Peachwaba and Greg Bach and we are in the final throws of hour number one on this Monday night.
Great to have you with us.
Our question of the night.
Be part of the fun, folks.
What is the greatest live show you've ever seen?
You will jump into some of your texts after the news at the top of the hour.
It could be any show to clarify Greg's question from earlier.
It could be a live like Broadway type show, a stand-up comedy show of theater, performance of some sort, rock concert, country concert opera, if you will.
Greg, do you like the opera?
I enjoy it.
I'm not the world's biggest fan, but I've been to a few and I enjoy them.
Take that, Timothy Chalamet.
I'm kind of with you.
I like a little bit of everything.
I have kind of an eclectic...
Taste but I don't like it all and not certainly an expert at anything, but I'm with you.
So any any live show folks Let us know 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic or you can text us on the civic media app Or if you're watching us on youtube facebook or x twitter you can drop us a stream comment and let us know what your favorite live show ever was and Boy, that was fun.
Are you a little scared after listening to kathy talk?
um
not really everything she said both I knew most of that to a certain extent and it also makes sense so for me it's just a matter of like what we're talking about as far as like holding
legislators accountable and things like that.
And plus also a great thing about that interview folks is this is going to be another web exclusive.
There is plenty of more content.
That was just a smattering, a smidge, a pinch, a scotch of what we talked about with Kathy, but it's a very interesting conversation.
We'll, we'll be putting up more of those extended web exclusives on the website for you to listen to, to watch.
Can they watch them down there?
Was that a, was that a watchable one?
It's a watchable one too.
All right.
So there you go.
I know.
It's our second one, right?
It's our second one, baby.
Jason Sheff, Chicago singer and Kathy now.
So that's great.
It's wonderful.
And Susan from McFarlane is on the, is on the, uh, call line right now.
She wanted to talk about this past discussion.
We just had with Kathy.
Good evening, Susan.
How are you?
I'm good.
Thank you.
And I was, I will say the best show I've ever seen was Kenny G.
Yeah.
Wow.
So I got to see him and I was very pleased with that.
But my comment really is going back to Amazon and, you know, they're helping get everybody to buy their products.
But if we would more shop locally and sometimes, you know, I've had the experience like for Christmas, I'm making a point not to go on Amazon.
I find what people want to give me their list.
And then I go out and source it locally because then I'm shopping for with the people in my community or, you know, at least people with concepts.
And I just feel as though it's, it's called being intentional because I just feel really very passionately that the more you shop locally, that money goes back into your community
and
you're not going to get rid of Goliath necessarily.
But I think.
you can actually eat away at their profits by, if everybody would shop for Christmas, if they have 10 or 15 people that just shop locally for the things that they want and they're wishless, and I guess a really nice gift from my grandchildren that I almost shop locally.
So anyway, that's my big piece, is that more people are just...
I can get it tomorrow on Amazon, but what if I went to a store?
Either in a musical store or an electronic store.
I can get the same thing.
Maybe
I can
get a little bit more, but if you're actually supporting your local community.
Absolutely.
Thank
you
so much for calling, Susan.
We really appreciate you reaching out.
I don't just agree with that as well.
I think it's important just to find local.
I know it can, you know, Pete, not everyone's made of money, but you know, if it's a small things, a small gift, it's always great to put those dollars back in your community because they really stay in that community and it does more good than people know.
Absolutely.
And you vote with your money, whether you
have a
lot of it or a little bit, where you spend that, all of that is being clocked and tracked.
And it really does.
I think if enough people do it, it makes an impact.
That was a great phone call.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Appreciate everyone who's been calling in and leaving comments.
We're talking more about than the second hour because we will get to the question.
By the way, the question of the night, which
is read some text.
Yeah, there you go.
We've
also got Greg, if we could squeeze this in before the break, I mentioned this to you earlier, Christina Laurie, who is a Wisconsin based influencer says in a post yesterday, it's time for a Chris Farley statue in the city where he was born, Madison's bronze fans, if you will.
I say why not?
Chris Farley, he at the moment anyway, is maybe the most famous Madisonian in that industry.
Um, she said she saw people discussing it on Reddit and, uh, you know, if it could be somewhere close to where he was, uh, where he grew up in maple bluff or maybe a van down by the river, you could put a statue by his,
I think that's him.
I think that'd be great.
Plus also, I mean, I, we don't have time right now, but I have thoughts on the bronze funds.
So I think the more statues we put up for actual human beings that really actually live than the better, but I'm all in favor of a statue for Chris Farley.
Absolutely.
He's a very real guy.
Real in our heart, real.
Absolutely.
Dude, I
would love to hear your thoughts on the bronze funds.
I have some.
I think, I mean, put a statue of him in Madison and then put a statue of him at Marquette University too.
Two statues, two.
One with one that's like in Madison, like where he's just like regular Chris Farley and then down by the river or Matt Foley or something like that.
Matt Foley at Marquette.
And, and, um, regular Chris at in Madison, I think that's a fantastic idea.
Uh, I love it.
And it's like the Sylvester Stallone, the Rocky kind of to your point, Greg, why do you have a statue of Rocky of fictional care?
We have Joe, I think it was the Bill Burge Oak.
You have Joe Frazier, an actual heavyweight champ.
Why do you have him on the steps there?
So there you go.
I don't disagree.
All right, we are coming back.
We're going to break for the news and we will come back and read your texts and kind of reset everything.
Tim Sowers from the Overture Center is here in hour number two.
And just a lot more fun, folks, headed your way on a money, probably more fun than you should have on a money.
We're coming right back.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media
Network.
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