0:00

What if AI could help save wildlife? We're

0:02

trying to help conserve the wildlife

0:05

that lives alongside Britain's railways. That's

0:08

Anthony Dancer of the Zoological Society of

0:10

London. ZSL partnered with Network Rail, which

0:12

maintains all 20,000 miles of

0:14

Britain's railway. Together they used Google Cloud AI to

0:16

get a clearer picture of the animals living near

0:18

the lines. Here's Network Rail's Neil

0:20

Strong. Using Google Cloud AI, we're

0:22

able to interpret a lot more data than

0:25

we would have been able to do with

0:27

our ecologist sitting behind a computer looking at

0:29

images or listening to sound files. Learn

0:31

more at g.co.com/cloud. From

0:35

the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and

0:38

this is The Daily. A

0:46

rising tide of mental health problems among

0:48

teens has sent parents, teachers

0:50

and doctors searching for answers.

0:53

This week, the nation's top doctor

0:55

offered one. Today,

0:59

I talk with Surgeon General Vivek

1:01

Murthy about his plan to take

1:03

on what he sees as

1:05

a central threat facing American teens.

1:08

Social media. It's

1:19

Friday, June 21st. The

1:23

Daily Show. Dr.

1:32

Murthy, nice to see you. Hey,

1:34

Sabrina, it's good to see you too. You can call me Vivek,

1:36

by the way. I'm very informal. Vivek, OK. Well,

1:39

you know, being the nation's top doctor, I'm inclined

1:41

to call you doctor, but we can go with

1:43

Vivek. Yeah, I'll tell you, Sabrina, I still

1:45

think of Dr. Murthy as my dad. So

1:48

interesting. So

1:51

you are the country's Surgeon General. And

1:53

we're talking to you today because earlier

1:55

this week you made a pretty big

1:57

announcement about the dangers of social media.

10:00

and on lawmakers to do more to

10:02

protect young people. Why

10:04

did you take that approach? Well,

10:07

because I think to address the harms of social

10:09

media does in fact require all of us to

10:11

ask the question, what can we do to protect

10:14

our kids? And we all do have

10:16

a role and responsibility here. But

10:18

I do think up until now, the

10:22

vast majority of the burden of managing

10:24

the harms of social media has

10:26

been placed almost entirely on the shoulders

10:29

of parents and kids alone. Now

10:31

think about this for a moment, because

10:34

the platforms themselves are

10:36

designed by some of the best product

10:38

engineers in the world, supported

10:40

and resourced by some of the wealthiest

10:42

companies in the world and

10:44

informed by cutting edge brain science, ultimately

10:47

to maximize how much time our kids are

10:49

spending on the platforms and

10:51

to tell a parent who didn't grow up with

10:54

these platforms that they should

10:56

somehow manage these rapidly evolving tools

10:59

and keep their kids safe when they don't

11:01

even understand the full extent of harms here.

11:03

That is both unreasonable and unfair. And that

11:05

is why in the advisory I issued, I

11:08

called on a number of other players to

11:10

step up. And

11:12

what did you hope would happen after

11:14

you issued your report last year? Well,

11:17

my hope was that a few things

11:20

would happen. Number one, that policymakers would

11:22

respond and would come

11:24

together to start putting in place the kind of

11:27

safety standards and data transparency

11:30

requirements and privacy protections that

11:32

we need. My hope also

11:35

was that parents and young people

11:37

would feel seen, would recognize that they're not

11:39

alone in their struggles. And finally,

11:41

I wanted platforms to know that they

11:44

also have a role here that they still

11:46

have an opportunity to fulfill. Social

11:48

media has been around for nearly two decades. There's

11:51

been plenty of time for platforms to make

11:54

the experience of young people safe,

11:57

sufficiently safe. It's one thing to say

11:59

we're implementing. safety measures, it's

12:01

another thing to actually provide evidence that

12:04

those measures are working to keep our kids

12:06

safe. So now we come to

12:09

this week when you decide to

12:11

put forward your suggested fix to

12:14

the problem, and that is a

12:16

warning label, which is something we're

12:18

used to seeing on cigarette packages,

12:20

Surgeon General's warning. How

12:22

exactly would a warning work in practice?

12:24

I mean, which social media platforms are

12:26

we talking about and what would it

12:28

look like in your ideal scenario? So,

12:31

a warning label would be a digital

12:34

warning. It would pop up at

12:36

a regular basis when individuals used

12:38

social media. There are important details

12:40

of what that warning label looks

12:43

like, what kind of font size it

12:45

is, what the literal wording of the

12:47

warning label, does it have graphics associated

12:49

with it, what part of your screen

12:51

does it appear on. Those questions are

12:53

typically answered in a scientific process that

12:55

takes place after Congress authorizes

12:57

the label. Lastly, it's important

12:59

for people to know that there is

13:02

data about warning labels and

13:04

their effectiveness. We have now

13:06

decades of experience with tobacco and

13:08

alcohol warning labels, and what

13:10

they tell us, particularly from tobacco, is

13:12

that these labels when done right can

13:14

be effective in increasing awareness and changing

13:16

behavior. What

13:19

gave you the idea to propose this?

13:21

Is it a reflection

13:24

of any frustration that not enough

13:26

has been done after you issued your report

13:29

last year? Well, it's a

13:31

reflection more of the fact that we all

13:33

have to look at every tool we have

13:35

in our toolbox and use them to help

13:37

address the harms that we may be seeing

13:39

here with social media. In our case, a

13:41

Surgeon General's warning is one of those tools.

13:44

I want to be very clear that a

13:46

warning label in my mind is not the

13:48

entire fix to the harms that

13:50

social media poses to our kids. I still

13:52

firmly believe what I stated last year in

13:54

my advisory and what I called for this

13:56

week in the op-ed, which is Congress ultimately

13:58

needs to to make social media safer. And

14:01

the way to do that is by putting

14:03

in place measures that protect

14:05

kids from harmful content and from

14:07

manipulative features that lead them

14:09

to excessive use. That is what Congress

14:12

has to do alongside that. A warning

14:14

would help parents and kids understand

14:16

the risks that we see. But

14:19

let me separately say that if you're asking, am

14:22

I frustrated or concerned that there hasn't

14:24

been enough action, absolutely yes.

14:28

Look, I think all of us should be

14:30

deeply concerned about how long it has taken

14:32

for us to ultimately take action to make

14:34

social media safer. We've got to do better.

14:36

And that starts ultimately with the platforms as

14:39

well as with Congress stepping up to take

14:41

action. We'll

14:48

be right back. Support

14:58

for this podcast comes from Google Cloud.

15:00

What if we could make medicines faster?

15:02

What if we could make crops better,

15:04

especially in a world where the climate

15:06

is changing? That's

15:09

Unkit Gupta, head of AI at Ginkgo Bioworks. Using

15:11

AI from Google Cloud, Unkit and his team are

15:13

building a next-generation AI platform to help companies grow

15:15

crops, medicines, and materials. So,

15:17

we're going to start with the next question. What if

15:19

we could make medicines faster? What

15:21

if we could make crops better, especially in a world

15:23

where the climate is changing? That's Unkit Gupta, head of

15:25

AI at Ginkgo Bioworks. Google

15:28

Cloud AI allows us to have

15:30

access to huge amounts of computational

15:32

scale to work on really important

15:34

problems in the world. Learn how

15:36

organizations are building with AI from Google Cloud

15:39

at g.co.com. All

15:43

right, guys. How would you describe our

15:45

podcast, matter of opinion? Extremely

15:48

civilized exchange of high-minded ideas. I

15:50

swear, if somebody says dinner party

15:53

conversation, I'm slapping them. It's an

15:55

airing of grievances, right? Somewhere

15:57

in between, I hope. Maybe the easy way. The

16:00

easiest way to explain what Matter of Opinion is,

16:02

is actually to share what our listeners have to

16:04

say about us. Listener Tobias

16:06

said, Matter of Opinion

16:08

is a great podcast for anyone

16:11

engaged with social issues and politics

16:13

on any level. The

16:15

light-hearted but testy conversations about

16:18

truly divisive topics pique my

16:20

interest. Light-hearted but

16:22

testy. That's totally you, Ross.

16:25

I'm putting that on my headstone. My back is getting

16:27

a little sore from all this patting. From

16:30

New York Times Opinion, I'm Michelle Cottle. I'm

16:32

Ross Douthat. I'm Carlos Lozada. I'm Lydia

16:35

Polgreen. And don't just take our work for

16:37

it. Make up your own mind and follow Matter

16:39

of Opinion wherever you get your podcasts. I

16:44

wanted to ask you, Dr. Morthy, about

16:46

the benefits, actually, because we're talking that

16:48

this is a complicated problem, but that

16:51

there are benefits, of course. Social

16:54

media can be particularly helpful

16:57

for marginalized kids. People

16:59

maybe who don't have access to a

17:01

supportive group of people around them. That

17:04

it is meaningfully good in their

17:07

lives. So how do you think

17:09

about putting a warning label kind

17:11

of just in a blanket

17:14

way on all social media platforms in

17:16

that respect? So I think about

17:18

a warning label as providing people with

17:20

information about their risk of

17:22

harms. Now risk of harm doesn't

17:24

mean that every single person is harmed. It doesn't

17:27

mean that there aren't benefits as well. That's true

17:29

with tobacco. It's true with alcohol. And we have

17:31

warning labels on both of those products. But

17:33

what it does mean is that there

17:36

are significant risks that people should be aware

17:38

of. And when it comes

17:40

to special populations and groups of people

17:42

and individuals who are helped

17:44

by social media, we also have to look

17:46

at the full picture there. Think about LGBTQ

17:48

youth for a moment. We do know that

17:51

in some cases, social media can be a

17:53

way for LGBTQ youth to find community, to

17:55

find support that in some cases they may not

17:58

have in person. Right. That can be possible. positive.

18:01

But what is less mentioned is

18:03

the fact that LGBTQ youth are

18:05

much more likely to be bullied and harassed

18:07

on social media compared to straight youth. So

18:09

how do we put that together? How do

18:12

we balance those? The bottom line is that

18:14

we can't assume, as I worry we have

18:16

been doing in some of the debate around

18:18

this, that because there are some benefits that

18:20

justifies all the harms, that it means we

18:22

shouldn't talk about the harms. People

18:25

have compared this moment in social media

18:28

to moments in America when new media

18:30

arrived on the scene and created a

18:32

kind of social panic. Or

18:34

say new things arrived on the scene and created

18:36

a kind of social panic. You know, TV,

18:40

video games, that these things would be dangerous

18:42

for kids, that these things would be

18:45

bad for kids growing up and for their

18:47

brains and all of that. What

18:50

do you say to that criticism

18:52

that maybe right now we're

18:55

just in the midst of another moral

18:57

panic about this because we don't quite understand it

18:59

yet? What do you say to that? Well,

19:03

I think it's an important question to consider.

19:05

We want to make sure our responses are

19:07

appropriate to the gravity of the situation. But

19:10

in the case of social media, there's something

19:12

here that is fundamentally different from

19:15

some of the other technologies that have propped

19:17

up and created temporary moral

19:19

panics, whether that was TV, radio, even

19:21

going way back, you know, the printing

19:24

press and books. What's

19:26

different here is that social

19:28

media has fundamentally transformed childhood

19:31

in a way that these previous

19:33

technologies did not. When TV

19:35

came onto the scene, I wasn't bringing my

19:37

TV into my bed and watching it throughout

19:39

the night. I wasn't able

19:41

to be contacted by strangers through

19:43

the TV in ways that would

19:45

lead to bullying and exploitation. I

19:48

didn't have my personal data stolen

19:50

because I was watching TV in

19:52

ways that also could lead to

19:54

exploitation and abuse. All

19:56

of these things are very unique to

19:58

social media and the pervasive. the

20:01

fact that young people can now carry it

20:03

in their pockets and have 24-7 access to

20:05

it, that has fundamentally changed the game. And

20:08

this point is just important to

20:11

underscore. Adolescents

20:15

are not little adults. They

20:17

are fundamentally in a very different stage of

20:19

brain development. And in that

20:21

stage of brain development, their impulse control

20:23

hasn't developed as much. They

20:26

are more susceptible to social

20:28

comparison and social suggestion. So

20:30

the things that even to us adults might seem

20:32

as just willpower questions, you

20:34

might just say, ah, it's a balance. Just draw

20:37

a few boundaries around your use of social media,

20:39

no problem. One, I would argue it's

20:41

quite hard for adults to do that, by the way. But

20:43

especially for young people, this is exceedingly

20:46

hard. And Sabrina, I

20:48

got to say that, like, for me and

20:50

I know for many others, this is very

20:52

personal. You know, I'm a father of

20:54

two young kids who's watching them grow up faster

20:57

than I would like every day and who's

20:59

seeing the world coming at them rapidly.

21:02

And I know I'm not alone as a parent. And

21:04

I think about the

21:07

day when they come up to me and ask me if

21:09

they can have a social media account. I

21:11

think about what's going to

21:13

happen when their friends are

21:15

bullied and harassed online. How are they going to

21:17

respond? Are their friends going to feel comfortable talking

21:19

to them about it? These

21:21

are the questions that all of us have to

21:23

grapple with as parents. How

21:26

old are your children? My

21:28

kids are six and seven now. And even

21:30

though they're young, I will say that a couple

21:32

years ago when my daughter was in preschool, she

21:34

came home one day and asked us about posting

21:36

a picture on social media. That's how

21:38

early it's coming at us. And what did you say to her?

21:41

We said no. And she went on her way and she

21:43

was fine. But this is going to happen more and

21:45

more. It's happening earlier and earlier to

21:47

kids. And parents are out

21:50

there trying to manage this all on their

21:52

own. There's no manual for how to manage

21:54

social media for your kids. There's no set

21:56

of ideal practices for how to tailor your

21:59

kids' lives. needs to the evolving nature of

22:01

social media. That's actually why I believe that

22:03

parents need to also come together and support

22:05

one another, you know, around taking a set

22:08

of shared rules so that not only is

22:10

it easier for us, but it's easier for

22:12

our kids. When we tell our kid, for

22:14

example, as my wife and I are planning

22:17

to do for our kids, that we are

22:19

not going to consider them being on social

22:21

media until at least after middle school. It

22:24

will be helpful to us if there are other parents

22:26

in our friend community and our school community who

22:29

are doing the same because then we can say,

22:31

no, you're not the only one, but Bobby and

22:33

Mary and Jack are also waiting until after middle

22:35

school. Are there other

22:37

parents who want to do the same to wait until

22:39

after middle school or are you guys outliers? Well,

22:42

so this is what has been fascinating. I will say

22:45

even in our own school community in the last few

22:47

weeks alone, there has been

22:49

more conversation in our school about

22:51

how to manage technology for our kids.

22:54

And there are many more parents than

22:57

I had even realized in our school who

22:59

want to wait until later. But

23:01

the reason many don't is because they want

23:03

to assume that everyone is just doing this. They don't

23:06

want their kid to be left out. So this is

23:08

a collective action problem. But many of

23:10

them are also unsure how to manage some of those

23:12

harms or may not be sure what the harms are.

23:15

And there's a lot of pressure too. You know, the number

23:17

of parents I talked to who say my

23:20

child came up to me and said, if

23:22

you don't let me open up an account on

23:24

social media, I'll be the only one in my

23:26

class. I'll be left out. Do you want me

23:28

to be more lonely? And if

23:30

you're a parent facing that, of course you don't

23:32

want your child to be lonely. So I really

23:34

feel for parents because our kids shouldn't be alone

23:36

in this and we shouldn't be alone either as

23:38

parents in managing social media. So

23:40

as the daughter of parents who decided that

23:43

their child should not have a television, I

23:45

can identify with those kids who say, I

23:47

feel more lonely. You're not part of the

23:49

conversation. You can't participate in the games because

23:51

you don't hear and you don't see. And

23:53

it is difficult. It's the hardest thing for

23:55

a parent, right? Are you

23:57

worried that could happen to you? where

30:00

we are more connected with one

30:02

another, where they can build friendships

30:04

and they can seek out

30:06

other kids who may be struggling with loneliness and

30:09

help them feel less alone and know that

30:11

there's somebody who's got their back. If

30:16

I've learned one thing in my life, it's that

30:20

we really do need each other. My wife

30:22

and I, as much as we love our kids, we

30:25

can't make sure the whole world is safe for them by

30:27

ourselves. We can't make sure that they

30:29

grow and encounter healthy levels of adversity, just

30:32

on our own. This is something we've got

30:34

to do together as

30:36

parents. And

30:40

so I do hope that the work that I do

30:42

will have some small contribution to making

30:44

the world better for them. But I

30:46

also know that to fulfill that hope, it's

30:49

gonna take all of us working hand in hand and

30:52

keeping our North Star clear, which

30:55

is ultimately taking care of our kids. This

30:57

is a dad, I just don't know what's

30:59

more important than that. Dr.

31:05

Morthey, thank you so much for your time. Thank

31:08

you so much, Sabrina. I really appreciate the chance to

31:10

talk with you about this. You

31:19

can hear more discussion of

31:21

the Surgeon General's social media recommendation

31:23

on this week's episode of Hard Fork.

31:33

We'll be right back. Can

31:36

the Earth be protected from space rocks? My

31:39

name is Ed Liu, I'm a former

31:41

NASA astronaut, and I'm currently the Executive

31:43

Director of the Asteroid Institute. Google

31:46

Cloud has enabled a very small team at the

31:48

Asteroid Institute to do the work of what five

31:50

or 10 years ago would have been hundreds of

31:52

engineers. And that's what we need in

31:55

order to sort through billions of images of the

31:57

sky, find asteroids in those

31:59

images, and figure out where those asteroids

32:01

are going. Learn more about

32:03

the potential of AI at Google Cloud

32:05

at g.co. forward slash cloud. Here's

32:09

what else you should know today. On

32:12

Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld a

32:14

tax on foreign income that

32:17

helped finance the tax cuts that

32:19

President Donald Trump imposed in 2017

32:22

in a case that many experts had

32:24

cautioned could undercut the

32:26

nation's tax system. The

32:28

vote was 7 to 2, with

32:30

Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing the majority opinion.

32:33

He was joined by Chief Justice

32:35

John Roberts and by the

32:37

Court's three liberals. The

32:40

ruling avoided what many feared could

32:42

have been fiscal chaos by

32:44

upholding, for now, the structure

32:46

of the income tax system. And

32:51

Donald Sutherland, the actor who played

32:53

a laid-back battlefield surgeon in

32:55

the television series MASH and

32:58

a soulful father in the movie

33:00

Ordinary People, died on Thursday in

33:02

Miami at the age of 88. Sutherland

33:05

was known for his wide range. He

33:08

had the ability to both charm

33:10

and unsettle, to reassure and

33:13

repulse. Across six decades,

33:15

starting in the early 1960s, he

33:18

appeared in nearly 200 films

33:20

and television shows. Some

33:22

years, he was in as many as half a

33:25

dozen movies. A

33:31

quick reminder to catch a new episode

33:33

of The Interview, right here tomorrow. This

33:36

week, Lulu Garcia-Navaro

33:39

talks with Michigan governor Gretchen

33:41

Whitmer about why she wants

33:43

to meet one of the men convicted of

33:46

plotting to kidnap her in 2020. I'd

33:49

like to understand what drove this

33:51

group of people to undergo this exercise to

33:54

try to kidnap me and kill me. I

33:56

want to understand it. What is

33:58

happening? You think there's something to understand? Maybe,

34:01

maybe there's not, but I'd

34:03

like to see. Today's

34:11

episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison,

34:14

Rob Zipko, Alex Stern and

34:17

Ricky Nowetski. It was

34:19

edited by Lexi Diao and Michael

34:21

Benoit, contains original

34:23

music by Dan Powell and

34:26

Chelsea Daniel and was engineered

34:28

by Alyssa Moxley. Special

34:31

thanks to Ellen Berry. Our

34:34

theme music is by Jim Brenberg and

34:36

Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's

34:50

it for The Daily. I'm

34:52

Sabrina Tarradisi. See you on Monday.

34:57

How can AI help the farmers who

35:01

are feeding the world? Jiva

35:04

is using AI from Google Cloud to

35:07

help smallholder farms around the world increase

35:09

crop yields by detecting pests and diseases,

35:11

using just their smartphone. Here's

35:13

Jiva's CEO, Ram Mahadevan. Take

35:16

a picture of the disease part. And

35:18

with that, the back end engine through our

35:20

Vertex AI that is provided by Google, validates

35:23

it with more than 90% accuracy and

35:26

gives them an accurate diagnosis and

35:28

a prognosis on what treatments should

35:30

be applied. Learn more at Google

35:32

Cloud at g.co.com.