VAN JONES: The digital divide, we’ve been talking about that for 20, 30 years. It is no longer a hardware issue for a lot of America. It’s in your mind… ‘Do I believe that this stuff is for me? Or is it for someone else? Is it for the white folks? Is it for the rich folks?’ You know, you look at some of these African American communities, Latino communities, overlooked, underestimated. What if you gave those communities the most creative tools ever imagined and told them, “This is not a hand grenade. This is a jetpack for you.” But that’s what I’m saying, man. It’s not a smart issue. It’s a heart issue. 

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Van Jones, political commentator for CNN, author, and entrepreneur. His latest initiative, called Dream Machine, focuses on opening up AI access for underrepresented communities. I wanted to talk to Van, in the shadow of the Democratic National Convention, about how the tech world and the political world are interacting in a highly charged moment. We discuss how Kamala Harris’ view of AI may differ from Joe Biden’s — and how she’s managed to turn herself from what he calls “cringey” into a Beyonce-like star. We also talked about the evolution of Elon Musk from Andrew Yang supporter to Donald Trump supporter, and key areas that Van believes are being neglected in the campaign maelstrom. He doesn’t hold any punches: blunt, skeptical, even inspirational, connecting today’s moment to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In short, it’s a fun and worthwhile ride. So let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response. 

I’m Bob Safian, and I’m here with Van Jones. Van, thanks for joining us.

JONES: I’m glad to be here, brother. 

Van Jones’ on Joe Biden dropping out in wake of the debate

SAFIAN: You’ve been busy as always, especially with the presidential race dramatically shifting over the last month.

JONES: Did something happen?

SAFIAN: Yeah. Did you hear that? There’s nonsense going on.

JONES: Listen, I’ve been on television now for 12 years. I helped to cover the 2012 election, the 2016 election, 2020, and now 2024. So I’ve seen good debate performances, bad ones. I was on set when Obama, you know, crap the bed, but I’ve never seen anything like that. And then we come out and they go right to my panel, and I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to say.’ I was the guy that was the first person to read the handwriting on the walls and not pretend that it was something that it wasn’t. 

SAFIAN: You were saying what everybody was thinking, right? 

JONES: You know, it really is crazy, Bob. You think about these stories like the emperor’s new clothes and that type of stuff. Like, nobody would possibly pretend that an emperor had on a beautiful robe if he’s actually butt naked. And it’s like, well, nobody would actually pretend that the president of the United States is ready to go for five more years in office when he’s not.

And then suddenly ding, he’s out and ding, he’s for Kamala and ding, Kamala goes from being cringe to being cool in 24 hours. She goes from being like, this kind of like, ‘do we have a vice president? Where is she?’ To like Beyonce in a week? So this is completely different, sir, than any other thing I’ve had to cover. 

Why Van Jones launched the Dream Machine Innovation Lab

SAFIAN: And in the meantime, while you’re doing this, you’re also launching a new initiative, this Dream Machine Innovation Lab to address the impact of AI on underrepresented communities. Like, is there a connection for you between what’s going on in the political world, and what’s going on in the tech world?

JONES: There is a big connection because if you’re waiting for politics and politicians to fix this stuff, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. I think in the last century, you could be excused for having a more state-oriented, government-oriented view of change. Because in the last century, you had politicians, political figures, Churchill, you know, JFK, FDR, Dr. King. These were political people who were either politicians or protesters trying to make governments work better, try to get the New Deal done so working families could have some support, trying to get civil rights and women’s rights done so that we really all can be seen as created equal. These are all the tasks of government. What political figure is there on the world stage right now that you think is up to the task of even being a good dog catcher or city council member? I mean It’s, compared to the challenges that we’re facing: catastrophic global warming, the rise of all these authoritarian governments, the United States kind of falling all over itself and infighting… And the political class is not up to this fight.

Meanwhile, who are the people really shaping tomorrow? It’s not the politicians, it’s the technologists. The technologists are the ones who are basically creating a new human civilization right before our eyes. 

Look, I’ve got, from my first marriage, I’ve got two kids. One’s in college, one’s in high school. But I’ve also, in my new relationship, I’ve got two little babies, two and a half years old and six months old. By the time they’re my age, they will be living in a different human civilization. Their first crushes or best friends might be AIs. When it’s time for them to have kids, they might use biotech tools to design their kids. They might be buried on the moon or on Mars. All of that is different than where I grew up. I was born in 1968. This is all Jetsons stuff. And yet, that’s what’s being created. Now, my local congressperson has very little leverage on that. I’m sorry, but there’s about 10,000 people in the AI community. They’re going to have a much bigger impact on all of that than any 10,000 politicians. 

And so, that’s why will.i.am and I got together and said, “Let’s launch a campaign to try to get the next generation of young minds, especially from Black and brown and other overlooked communities, get them focused on AI.” So we have a campaign called Make Wakanda Real. trying to excite the imagination of young people. What if you could use all these technology tools to solve problems? Wakanda being the incredibly technologically advanced super-nation in the superhero universe of Marvel. What if you could make that real? And so it’s a vote of confidence in the future in that we think that technology can be used for good. 

Empowering underrepresented communities to harness AI

SAFIAN: If the driving force of creating this future is tech, like Black representation in tech, Black people make-up maybe 8 percent of tech employees and like 3 percent of tech C-suite executives. I mean, the creators of this future don’t necessarily represent all of us.

JONES: It’s, it’s bad. It’s bad. And it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous. It’s not, “Oh, it’s terrible for the poor Black people.” Though it is. “Oh, it’s terrible for the Native Americans and whatever.” Though it is. It’s terrible for everybody. The last time we let one little group determine human civilization, we had 400 years of slavery, colonialism, environmental destruction. You don’t want that. You want the next time you build a civilization to include everybody because you want a new human civilization that is more in harmony with itself and the planet that we call home, and that can’t be created by one little group of people. That’s gotta be co-authored by a lot of people. 

But I’ll tell you this, and this is gonna get me in trouble with some of my liberal friends — at least at the consumer level. We call it the digital divide, we’ve been talking about that for 20, 30 years, it is no longer a hardware issue for a lot of America. I’m not saying you don’t have some deserts. You do have some housing projects, you do have some neighborhoods that are still not online. You gotta deal with that. But increasingly, it’s no longer a hardware problem. Most people have a smartphone. They could download ChatGPT. They could download Midjourney. It’s not so much a hardware problem, it’s a wetware problem. It’s in your mind, in your brain, in between these two ears, ‘do I believe that this stuff is for me? Do I believe that this technology is supposed to be in my hands? Or is it for someone else? Is it for the white folks? Is it for the rich folks?’ That’s a wetware problem. Is it corny? Or is it cool? That’s a wetware problem. And so we’re trying to have a campaign that says, you know, you look at some of these African American communities, Latino communities, Native American overlooked, underestimated, Appalachian. You’ve got creative people. You’ve got resilient people. You’ve got grit. You’ve got determination. You’ve got innovative people. What if you gave those communities the most creative tools ever imagined and told them, ‘this is not a hand grenade. This is a jetpack for you.’ You don’t have to go to four years of college and then go beg somebody for a bunch of capital. A lot of what you’re doing now is you’re replacing capital with code.

SAFIAN: But that group, they have to believe it, right? They have to believe it to grab that.

JONES: But that’s what I’m saying, man. It’s not a smart issue. It’s a heart issue. You got a lot of smart people, but do they have that self belief? Do they have that self confidence? 

SAFIAN: So much of the discussion about AI and underrepresented communities has been about that AI is developed, like not in a particularly inclusive way, or AI regulation and bias. And it doesn’t sound like that’s necessarily what you’re obsessed with. Not that you don’t think maybe that should be addressed, but that it’s more about just getting folks in those communities to feel like, ‘yeah, this is something that’s cool for me to make part of my life.’

JONES: I’m glad you pointed this out because Dr. King, you know, my great hero, he would have been very concerned about everything you just said. He would have stood up and said, “we want equal protection from racially biased algorithms. We want equal protection from racist robots. We want equal protection from job displacement.” But he wouldn’t have stopped there. He also would have wanted equal opportunity, equal access to the good stuff. See, that’s what’s been missing. Dr. King didn’t say, “I have a critique,” you know what I mean? Like, “I have a set of concerns,” you know? That’s not the thing, you know. He had a dream. He had a vision. And I think you gotta be on both sides of the conversation, equal protection from bad stuff, but equal opportunity, equal access, equal excitement, equal cultural momentum on the good stuff.

Because look at the Black community when it comes to technology. Yes, you can say we don’t participate in Silicon Valley, and we definitely don’t, and we need to do more. And yet, we took two turntables and a microphone in the Bronx, and created hip hop, which is now bigger than any other musical genre. That was technology. Kids literally would hack streetlights to be able to have these block parties with two turntables and a microphone. And somebody would get on and say, “what a hip, a hop, a hippity hip…” And suddenly, you had hip hop and it is now the dominant cultural force in the world. So if you could do that with that little bit of technology, what does that same community do with Midjourney, with ChatGPT, with Sora? We have no idea what could come. And so, I just want to make sure that somebody’s on the opportunity side of this thing. 

How Van Jones educates himself about AI

SAFIAN: I’m curious, how do you educate yourself about AI? Like, do you spend a lot of time playing with these different tools?

JONES: Yeah, though, I suck, man. You know, it’s a different mindset, prompting, you know, like trying to ask this goddamn thing the right questions. And like, I think a different kind of a brain is going to figure out that dance, it really is a tango.

SAFIAN: Yeah, you gotta learn the steps, right?

JONES: You’ve got to learn the steps. I took an MIT course on machine learning online. It was horrible for my self esteem. I’m used to doing pretty good in classroom settings. It was like trying to learn a foreign language in a foreign language. But It showed me that there’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just another tool that can kind of get out of hand. But I mean everything else we invented can get out of hand, you know, bioweapons, nuclear weapons, social media. I mean anything can get out of hand. 

But there are people who if they had a laptop and they could get online and they had a couple extra hours in the evenings instead of watching, you know, TikTok all day, could create beautiful stuff, could solve really important problems, could become incredibly valuable people. And I just want that to at least be an option, Bob, because look, you know why you have never ever in your life gone to McDonald’s and ordered sushi? First of all, it’d be nasty. It’d be horrible. You’ll probably get sick.  

SAFIAN: It’d be nasty, yeah.

JONES: Exactly, but also, also, also — sushi is not on the menu. It’s not on the menu. So you never order something that’s not on the menu. I’m just trying to put the positive part of AI on the menu for overlooked, underestimated communities. And I believe that some of those folks are going to do stuff that blows everybody’s minds. 

SAFIAN: Van has a way of keeping it real, doesn’t he? Let’s hope AI access is more enticing than McDonald’s sushi, but I get what Van’s saying here — that if we don’t make the dream of AI available across varied communities, that we’ll narrow the possibilities for the future, for all of us. I also agree with Van that technologists may have a bigger impact on the future than governments — which makes tech access that much more important.

[AD BREAK]

After the break, we’ll dig into the tech/politics crossover more, including why Kamala Harris’ embrace of AI may differ from Joe Biden’s and why Elon Musk’s recent actions have Van longing for quote, ‘the old Elon.’ So stay with us. 

Before the break, CNN’s Van Jones explained why he’s pushing for wider AI access through a new venture called Dream Machine. Now, Van digs into the politics of AI, why Harris may approach tech differently than Biden, and why this may be the most momentous year since 1968. Let’s dive back in. 

What are Kamala Harris’ views on AI

SAFIAN: Earlier this year, Reid Hoffman came on my show after he’d met with Joe Biden about AI, and Reid shared some of what Biden’s perspective on emerging tech is. But when I asked Reid, like, he doesn’t really know how Harris thinks about AI. Do you have any clear sense of that from her personally, from her team?

JONES: I’ll say two things about it. One is I don’t know, and I’ve known the Vice President for 25 years. We came up together in San Francisco politics.

First of all, if you had told me even a month ago that she would be more popular than Taylor Swift, I would have said, “in what universe is that possible?” And I don’t know what she thinks about this in particular.

What I do know is that she’s from the Bay Area, and Joe Biden is not. So she grew up next door to Silicon Valley. She’s a different generation. A lot of her donors and supporters her entire career have been Silicon Valley. And so Kamala knows a bunch of people in Silicon Valley. She’s known them for a long time. I can’t help but imagine that that won’t have a big impact on how she thinks about this stuff as opposed to a lunch bucket, Joe Biden from another century on another coast. 

Moving past polarization to tackle deeper issues

SAFIAN: You’ve been part of a bunch of different enterprises addressing criminal justice reform, clean energy — they haven’t been particularly central in this campaign. It seems more like it’s focused on, like, law and order and economic growth. Like, does that frustrate you?

JONES: You know, I understand the waves and the currents and the motions and stuff like that. And so sometimes your issue is hot, and sometimes it’s not. Unfortunately the issues become so polarized that if you’re a Democrat, you’re talking about climate change, you’re wasting your time because anybody who agrees with you on that is gonna vote for you anyway, and you’re just gonna piss off people in the middle who might not know which way to go, and no Republican can own the issue. I remember when this issue was more of a dumb versus smart issue than a left versus right issue. 

But for me, look, I wish we were talking about much deeper issues in general. I think we have a real spiritual crisis in the country. People are hurting, man. I think people feel lost. I think people feel very, very concerned, afraid about the future. I think people feel increasingly anxious about other people. Like, I don’t think the word ‘neighbor’ means the same thing that it did when I was growing up. I mean, half the time you don’t know who the hell your neighbor is. Maybe you got some app, you know, looking out, making sure the neighborhood doesn’t have some bad person in it. That’s not the same. The world’s changing, man. 

I mean, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea… They’ve got our number, and they’re messing with us. If these authoritarians win, you know, in the next quarter of the century, some of the stuff we take for granted can go away. I’d rather talk about that in those terms. Not talking about that in terms of, “well, you’re a dummy,” “you’re a dummy,” but we need to come together as a country about some of this stuff. 

Parenthood & politics in modern times

SAFIAN: And instead, everything gets to be divisive, right? Like, I mean, in the last few weeks, being a parent entered the conversation with J.D Vance critiquing Kamala Harris’s identity as a stepparent. I mean, you mentioned your children, and I know your two younger children are in this dynamic called ‘conscious co-parenting.’ Like, has your personal experience of parenting impacted how you look at the conversations about parenthood in politics? 

JONES: A little bit, but I mean, even if I didn’t have this kind of, you know, very modern family arrangement with Noemi. If people don’t know, I have a friend and after COVID we decided to have two kids together, and people thought that was really bizarre. But, you know, we call it ‘conscious co-parenting,’ and it has its ups and downs. I wouldn’t recommend it for everybody, but if you have a friend and somebody you trust and somebody you like… Having kids, it’s a lot like having a small business in that, you know, it’s a lot of supply and demand and income and expenses and project management and a lot of HR. And so if there’s somebody that you would start a small business with, that might be a decent enough person to start a modern family with, and that’s really been our experience. 

But I just think that J.D Vance, his insults against, you know, women who don’t have kids are really meaningless, trivial compared to his insistence that women do have kids, that don’t want to. His insistence that women have kids is much, much worse than his ridicule for women who don’t have kids. 

What’s at stake for the U.S. Presidential election?

SAFIAN: For this presidential election, there have been strong words on both sides about the repercussions if the other candidate is elected. What do you think’s at stake in this election?

JONES: I really do think you have very stark differences between these candidates. There always are differences, but I think the direction of society is at stake. If the very worst potential in Donald Trump would come out, I don’t want to find out in his next presidency, but I don’t want to find out because if it did, he’s already tested and strained American institutions to the point of breaking. 

The worst of Kamala Harris would be more aid and comfort to really obnoxious people on the left who think they’re better than everybody. And you know, talk down to people. That strikes me as survivable. The worst that comes from Kamala Harris is maybe too much government spending, maybe a tax policy that punishes innovation in a way, at least in the eyes of the innovators and entrepreneurs. That sucks, but you can then hire somebody else to be president in four years. It’s survivable. The worst from Donald Trump I don’t know. That takes 50 years to fix, 20 years, 100 years. I mean, how do you fix that stuff? So I think it’s very very consequential.

Inside Elon Musk’s shift from Andrew Yang to Donald Trump

SAFIAN: The state of the electorate is part of what makes me so anxious, that there are so many people who adamantly believe that one candidate is a crook, and you can find lots of people on both sides who will make that argument about the other candidate. And I guess I was hoping that business leaders would sort of take up the middle and kind of mend some of that, but it seems like that’s kind of subsided, and business folks are just like, ‘yeah, I don’t want to piss anybody off.’ 

JONES: I think that the business community, when Biden was clearly incapable of running and certainly incapable of serving, and the bite of taxes at the very, very top created permission structure for a lot of people in the business community to move in directions that are just very scary to me. I mean, listen, Elon Musk, he was an Andrew Yang supporter in 2020. So four years ago, Elon Musk was supporting an innovation-first Democrat. And now he’s, you know, clearly to the right of Trump, and I think imagines himself maybe being some kind of an oligarch in some, more authoritarian country. That is terrifying to me. I like Elon Musk when he’s trying to figure out how to get to space and how to, you know, make clean cars and how to get innovation in government going with Andrew Yang. That’s a massive asset to humanity. I’d like to see a lot more of the old Elon Musk.

SAFIAN: Well, power sometimes does strange things to people, right? 

JONES: I’d like to find out. If I can get some more power, I’ll let you know how it goes. But in the meantime, you know, I just get to talk about the people who do have it. 

Takeaways from the Presidential election so far

SAFIAN: When you think about where we’re headed for the rest of 2024, are you optimistic? 

JONES: This is a year that people are going to talk about, like ‘68. You had a new technology that was showing young people things that they had never seen before and getting them all riled up: color television. You had an unpopular Democratic incumbent Johnson, who didn’t decide to go through with the election. You had a guy named Bobby Kennedy jump into the race in ‘68. You’ve got a guy named Bobby Kennedy jumping into the race this year. You’ve got the democratic convention in Chicago. I mean, it’s literally like a glitch in the matrix. 

But to me, what I take away from it is that a lot more is possible than we think. Kamala Harris is 59, she’s almost 60 years old. And she’s just now coming into herself. Which means anybody in America can be that unpopped kernel that pops into a completely unexpected form. And no matter how bad things look for your company, for your health, for your family, for your democracy, tomorrow’s a new day. You have no idea what’s coming.

SAFIAN: So much changed in a month. Like, what’s going to change in the next month?

JONES: Who knows? Who knows? Expect the unexpected. The debate between Vice President Harris and Donald Trump is still ongoing. Don’t assume that your person is going to win because both of them have done well and poorly in debate situations. I say all that because it’s true. And also I’m trying to keep our ratings up. So we’ll see. 

SAFIAN: This has been great. Really. I appreciate it. 

JONES: All right. To be continued. Thank you, brother.

SAFIAN: 2024 is shaping up to be a really significant year in U.S. history. It’s an opportunity for us to dig deep to try understanding where the spirit of this country is broken and how best to fix it. Modern politics can feel like rearranging moving deck chairs, or alternatively, a WWE event. But it’s important for business leaders and technologists in this audience to think about what it means to care for your neighbors, why so many people feel uneasy about the future, and how to expand the dream of America, as Van Jones puts it. While we’re watching the next debate, on the edge of our seats about what Kamala Harris or Donald Trump might say or do, we should also think about what we’re going to do. What folks like Van Jones say on CNN or Fox matters for the moment, but what matters most is how we’re judged by future generations and future stakeholders. Let’s hope we can keep our eye on the ball. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.