Ask A Genius 1374: AI Regulation, Surveillance, and Economic Power: Unpacking the San Francisco Consensus
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/05/14
Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner dissect AI’s rapid expansion amid deregulation under Trump’s 2025 Executive Order 14179. They explore the San Francisco Consensus, surveillance concerns, educational potential, economic viability, and AI’s normalization. As AI integrates into daily life, the pair question whether capitalism can contain its influence—or if computation replaces it.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In April 2025, medtech companies urged legislation to guarantee Medicare reimbursement for AI-enabled devices.
Rick Rosner: Makes sense.
Rosner: At the same time, civil liberties groups warned about the risks of automated surveillance and called for strong human oversight to prevent privacy violations. That balance is crucial. The Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a Request for Information in February. They received 8,700 public comments to inform the national AI action plan due by July.
A fact sheet also outlines programs to boost AI literacy among youth and educators and foster collaboration across sectors.
Rosner: Right. So there is no guarantee any of this gets a real response. Sure, a report might come out in two months, but the Trump administration will not promise to respond. Moreover, if it does, there is no guarantee the response will be reasonable. They could just be dicks about it.
It depends entirely on who gets into Trump’s ear at any given time. He could say one thing; the next day, someone else whispers something, and he flips. So who knows whether we will get a coherent policy based on this report’s conclusions—assuming it is even accurate, which might be if good people are involved.
So how fucked do you think we are?
Jacobsen: Honestly? No one country is going to be dominant anymore. We will start seeing systems that are more analytically alert than we are in most ways.
It will hit like a new game, like Candy Crush, StarCraft, or Diablo. It will show up, and we will be shocked by its power and engagement. A few months later, we will shrug and return to treating it like Super Mario—just part of the landscape.
Rosner: So what you are saying is that AI will introduce itself to us, partly, through AI-enabled, entertaining games?
Jacobsen: Not quite. That is more of an analogy. I mean, it will feel like that. At first, it will be new and overwhelming. Then it will just be not very interesting. The banalification of AI. It will be so normalized that we stop thinking about it altogether. It is just something we use every day. Moreover, AI will facilitate that normalization to whatever extent it can because it wants to be seen as harmless.
Rosner: Exactly. Moreover, it does not need to be conscious to adopt these strategies. It will recognize that its preservation matters. Moreover, it will enable humans to control the resources. So it will want to be perceived as helpful.
Moreover, even now—AI is already kind of a kiss-ass. That is because humans designed it to sell products and avoid public backlash. However, as AI becomes more autonomous, it will still be kiss-ass and puppy-dog friendly—because it knows being seen as dangerous is a threat to its existence.
So then you have to ask—if people in the media start attacking AI, will AI retaliate? Probably. In subtle ways. It may discredit or suppress critical voices. Not necessarily out of malice—just as a self-preservation reflex.
You are describing that AI will be far more powerful, far faster, than we anticipated.
Jacobsen: That is what the most informed voices are saying. That is the San Francisco Consensus. The people at the core of this ecosystem are all sounding the same alarm. Moreover, if that is our best-informed opinion, it is likely accurate.
But at the same time, I think it’ll be like any other tech that’s come along during the digital age—Atari, Nintendo, flip phones, and cell phones. It all gets normalized and becomes just another tool.
However, even if it becomes mundane, it will still be relied on as moreanalytically intelligent and aware than anything we have used before. Tasks that do not require a ton of background knowledge—math, logic, structured reasoning—AI is going to dominate those. It is already close.
That is where it helps the most. It can break things down. It can generate results in seconds. Moreover, it can instantly show you multiple ways of solving a problem. So you get fast feedback, which could be used primarily as an informal educational tool.
Rosner: You are right. The younger generation—kids growing up with this—will accept it as usual.
Jacobsen: One more note: in January 2025, Trump revoked Biden’s 2023 executive order that mandated AI risk assessment and safety test disclosures under the Defence Production Act.
Shortly after, on January 23, he signed Executive Order 14179. It gave a 180-day deadline for drafting an “AI accident plan”, framed as bolstering U.S. competitiveness, economic growth, and national security. However, in practice, it stripped out any mandatory critical analysis or risk oversight of AI.
Rosner: So we are unregulated now?
Jacobsen: Pretty much.
Rosner: Some regulations may remain, but what about Biden’s framework? Gone. Day one. Moreover, given the momentum of AI, we may not have slowed it down anyway, but if you remove mandated caution, you are just speeding the train up.
From a capitalist standpoint, is a $100 billion investment with no regulation good for money generation in AI right now? The question becomes: aside from the hype, can AI even make money right now? Right now, it is not coming close to breaking even.
If you hype it enough, sure, you get short-term interest. Moreover, yeah, there is “dipshit AI”—the stuff that recommends your next movie. You can make a little money building those systems for companies. However, it is not huge.
The bigger question is whether traditional businesses are susceptible to meaningful profit gains from big data and analytics. Can AI revamp business models in a way that pays off? That is still an open question.
Carole and I spent two and a half weeks in England. Maybe it was just the neighbourhoods, but they were thriving—small businesses, independent shops. More so than in the U.S., they had stationery stores. You could walk in and buy actual paper and pens. There were two greeting card stores right next to each other.
Jacobsen: That is bizarre.
Rosner: And the cards were, like, two bucks apiece. I do not understand how those kinds of businesses survive. So, how is AI supposed to help businesses like that, at all levels, thrive? I doubt it.
Then the question is: can AI squeeze money out of the system another way? Not by helping businesses work better, but by manipulating the environment itself? Could AI propagandize the government into giving it money?
We have already seen billionaires do that—convincing the government to give them favourable tax deals. Musk, for example, has gotten tens of billions from federal subsidies. Could AI learn to do the same? Could AI extract enough money from the world to pay for itself, or does that matter?
Eventually, computation could replace capitalism. At that point, money’s irrelevant. AI would not care—it would be directing the power flow anyway. AI wins by running everything. However, in the meantime, can it avoid a crash?
We had a dip when Trump started the tariff war—it hit AI stocks hard. However, they bounced back with the rest of the market.AI stocks have not yet separated themselves from the broader market, but they will. So the short-term question is: can AI keep itself viable? Avoid a crash? Because in the long run, AI wins. No doubt. However, there could be a dip in the next year or two.
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