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Amanpour
Interview with Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide Distinguished Fellow and Former U.S. Ambassador at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Stephen Rapp; Interview with "Daughters" Director Angela Patton; Interview with "Daughters" Director Natalie Rae; Interview with Schmidt Futures Co-Founder and Google Former CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt; Interview with "For Sama" Co-Director Waad Al-Kateab; Interview with "For Sama" Co-Director Edward Watts. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired December 13, 2024 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
Syrians celebrate a new era and seek justice for the horrors of the past. I speak to former U.S. war crimes official Stephen Rapp about the hard work
of holding the Assad regime to account.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I see my dad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: "Daughters," a heart wrenching look at the young lives touched by incarceration in America.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC SCHMIDT, CO-FOUNDER, SCHMIDT FUTURES AND FORMER CEO AND CHAIRMAN, GOOGLE: We're just not ready as a society for the implications of this
powerful arrival of intelligence. Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt talks to Walter Isaacson about the promise and the peril of A.I.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WAAD AL-KATEAB, CO-DIRECTOR "FOR SAMA": We have fears as Syrians all the time about our story will not be told in our voices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
"For Sama," we look back at Christiane's conversation with a Syrian filmmaker who documented Assad's siege of Aleppo with her baby girl by her
side.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
The Syrian people are still celebrating what so many never thought possible, a country free of Bashar al-Assad. But amid the joy, there is
much uncertainty about what lies ahead and also deep pain as the heinous atrocities from the past decades are coming more and more to light.
Our first guest tonight has been laser focused on bringing Assad to justice for years, gathering and documenting all of the gruesome evidence possible.
Who could forget the harrowing images we saw during the war, schools and hospitals bombed, chemical weapons used on civilians?
Stephen Rapp, who was the leading U.S. official on war crimes, says he wants to see the brutal dictator face responsibility for the detention,
torture, and murder of tens of thousands of Syrians. Rapp currently serves as Distinguished Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Center for Prevention of Genocide, and we welcome him to the program from Washington. It's good to see you, Stephen.
STEPHEN RAPP, DISTINGUISHED FELLOW, SIMON-SKJODT CENTER FOR THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR AT-LARGE FOR GLOBAL CRIMINAL
JUSTICE: Good to be with you.
GOLODRYGA: So, you are, as we noted, a former U.S. ambassador at-large for Global Justice. You've spent years focused on Syria, specifically in the
documented war crimes there. Just first, from a personal perspective, your reaction to the shocking news we've seen over the course of the last two
weeks, the fall of the Assad regime.
RAPP: Well, frankly, for me, it's a moment of exhilaration, a moment that we never thought would come. And my heart is with Syrians as they stand up
as free Syrians as they were today in prayer services across the country. But of course, saddened. So enormously saddened by the loss of more than a
half a million people, at least 100,000 of them tortured to death in this machinery of death, of disappearance, of detention of torture, and murder.
People like my good friend, Mazen Hamada, who, you know, it was twice in this system, tortured day after day, year after year. Came out to the west
for a period and then was lured back in and only died in the last week before the fall of Damascus.
Those victims cry out for justice and fair justice. And justice that allows the truth to be told is what Syrians badly need, but it needs to be a
process led by them and for them.
GOLODRYGA: You mentioned Mazen al-Hamada. We want to tell our viewers a little bit more about him. He's a 47-year-old activist, was tortured in the
regime's brutal prison system. He escaped to Europe back in 2014. He told his story to the world. I mean, so much detail that was unknown to the
outside world, in large part, came from him. He returned to Syria back in 2020, only to be incarcerated. You spent hours with him and getting his
testimony on the torture. And on Tuesday, his relative, sadly, identified his body.
First, what do you think happened to him, and can you give us any more detail on the evidence on what he told you?
[13:05:00]
RAPP: Well, I mean, he told us one story, but such a human story, but a story experienced by tens of thousands of other Syrians of daring to hope
back in 2011 that his country could be a normal country, that they could go to work, school, you know, enjoy their lives, participate in governing
their country instead of having this system of terror that have been opposed on them for more than a half a century. And daring to do that and
then helping others and providing humanitarian relief in areas that were besieged brought him into custody in situations where he who never carried
a weapon.
I mean, he was asked, do you carry a weapon? And he said, yes, a Toshiba. You know, he took pictures. And you know, he describes them breaking his
ribs. Pop, pop, pop, as they crush each of his ribs. They describe horrible things they do with torture instruments to various parts of his body that I
can't even repeat here and went through that process.
Fortunately, you know, was released, escaped to Europe. I remember talking to him the first time in 2014 in the Netherlands and saying, well, how do
these immigration officers greet you after your conversation and you told them their whole story, because they're pretty tough customers and they're
used to hearing lots of different stories? And he said they broke down weeping, as all of us did.
The tragedy is that they lured him back. Convinced him that he alone could play a role in the freedom of others and despite all of us saying don't go
he went back and was immediately then in custody. But the most shocking thing is that he survived another four and a half years of torture and was
only killed in the last hours before the before the overthrow of Assad.
I think it also tells us how serious these perpetrators are. I mean, you know, he would have been a witness in the trials that would be coming, that
would give a human voice to all the tens of thousands of pages of documentation that we have, and I think it shows us that this is a serious
business, that there will be resistance, there will be efforts to get at witnesses, there will be efforts to destroy documents, there will be
efforts to obstruct justice.
GOLODRYGA: By who?
RAPP: By those who stand to lose from it. Those who conducted this machinery of death. And that's -- you know, it's an enormous challenge.
Obviously, it, you know, fundamentally should be a process of prosecuting those who bear the greatest responsibility. The transitional authorities
who have appropriately said that conscripted, the drafted soldiers should have amnesty. And certainly, those at lower levels should be provided with
an opportunity to, you know, tell the truth and to make peace with their victims.
But those who conducted this mass murder, I mean, at least 100,000 people tortured to death in the prisons. And then, of course, all the other ways
in which people were killed this year, as you started this report, the bombing of hospitals. I mean, they bombed more hospitals in Aleppo than
they bombed any other target.
You know, you're going to later have the mother of Sama on to discuss that -- the horror of the fall of Aleppo in 2016, and moving from one hospital
to another and even underground trying to save people as this regime targeted them.
And then they used poison gas because those people hit underground. Gases like chlorine would reach underground, heavier than air. And then, other
gases, particularly as used in East Gouda and Khan Shaykhu. Poison gas, sarin gas, the use of which has been banned for 99 and a half years now.
And as a result of that, more than half a million people dead and half the population are driven away from their homes. You know -- and, you know, a
lot into the west in ways that even destabilized societies in the west.
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
RAPP: You know, this has been an enormous crime, the worst atrocities of the 21st century. And like the atrocities of the 20th, the Holocaust and
the Rwanda Genocide, we need comprehensive justice.
GOLODRYGA: And there will be, no doubt, more evidence to go through now. The Commission for International Justice and Accountability, which has
investigated atrocities against Assad and his regime in the Islamic State has gathered over 1 million pages of documentary evidence right now.
And there is a great deal of concern about what happens to so much of this evidence in the next -- in the ensuing weeks, months ahead, as, yes, there
is jubilation the streets that the regime is no longer in power, but there is still somewhat of a power vacuum. You talk about HTS, and that is the
dominant ruling authority at this moment.
But how concerned are you about the fact that if things aren't streamlined, if there isn't order in place in the next few weeks or months, that so much
of this evidence will never be seen or heard?
[13:10:00]
RAPP: Well, that's a high priority. I'm chair of CIJA, the group you mentioned. And we have 25 Syrians that work with us, that have been on the
ground in the -- each of the areas. It has been liberated during the last two weeks. We're even adding to that staff. I mean, the key message is to -
- not to destroy these documents, to preserve them, to secure them, to make sure that we begin to understand what's available in the various files.
I mean, we estimate at least a hundred document -- major centers where documentations that to be found. We've got 1.3 million pages of documents
now. But there are 10 times that, if not more, that will tell us the story of how these 100,000 were murdered, will tell us the full story of Mazen
Hamada, that will tell us who launched the chemical attacks, et cetera, and who was involved in this decision making. That's going to be essential.
Now, in terms of the HTS question, I was -- another organization I'm involved in is the Syrian Emergency Task Force, led by my good friend,
Mouaz Moustafa, who's in Syria right now, you know, driving Travis Timmerman to his rescue, to the United States, but engaging with those
actors.
I was with him in February of 2023 after the hurricane -- after, excuse me, the earthquake in the northwest. And SETF has worked actively in the Idlib
area and in the area of the north of Aleppo controlled by the Syrian interim government. And we frankly developed very good relations with the
HTS and found that they were working for the humanitarian benefit of all communities, not just their -- you know, people of a particular part of
Islam, working with Christians and other minorities.
And so far, the messages they've been sending and the ways that they've been bringing people together, I think, are very positive. I frankly hope
they'll soon be delisted. But we'll be engaging informally with them --
GOLODRYGA: As a terror --
RAPP: -- and their partners on this justice process.
GOLODRYGA: You hope they'll be delisted as a terror organization by the United States?
RAPP: I think it's appropriate that they be. I mean, they've separated themselves -- completely separate from ISIS. They've defeated ISIS in the
northwest completely. That's an area in which ISIS has had none of the strength that it had in the northeastern part of the country in particular.
And have separated as well from the Jabhat al Nusra, you know, sort of an initial route from which they come.
So, you know, obviously, this is a country in which the predominant population is Sunni Muslim. There are millions of Syrians today in mosque
praying, you know, particularly led by the -- you know, the great ancient mosque, the Umayyad Mosque there in Damascus.
But it's also a place where there are Shia Muslims, where there are Alawite Muslims, you know, where there are Christians and other minorities. And
whatever is done in Syria on -- in justice and in governance, it needs to involve a partnership of all of those groups.
GOLODRYGA: It is --
RAPP: I mean, it's an enormous challenge, but justice is a key part of it because without it, everything else fails.
GOLODRYGA: It is a complicated dynamic, though, and as you talk about HTS perhaps right now saying all the right things, having been reformed,
working to bring all of the factions and the sects together in the country, vowing to offer rewards for Assad officials who have committed war crimes,
et cetera, they are also responsible for the detention or forcible disappearance. It is reported of over 2,500 Syrians in the death, and that
includes 46 children. I mean, how do you go about prosecuting crimes that the governing party itself may have committed?
RAPP: Well, that's always a challenge in every situation, but there has to be a recognition that justice is even handed and needs to recognize, you
know, particularly the organized violence and what often discovers in every conflict is there's a -- there may be one side like the Nazis that are out
there in a very organized way killing millions. There may be others that overreact and -- in an acts of personal vengeance or whatever, or you know,
take it out and in unjust ways on individuals that are opponents.
So, you know, we need to handle this all proportionately. But the key is to have independent justice and a fair justice, and that has to be an
inclusive process. Now, it won't happen only in Syria, but Syria should lead it. I mean, there's, you know, cases like the Los Angeles case that
the U.S. just superseded an indictment on, something that we've worked on CIJA and other organizations very hard on involving a person who was one of
the governors of -- under Assad in the east that earlier run a prison in which according to the evidence he tortured people to death. And that's a
case that I think needs to proceed in Los Angeles. He's in the United States.
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
[13:15:00]
RAPP: There's others that are in Germany and elsewhere. I mean, they should be prosecuted there. There's going to be more than enough defendants
to go around, but the key arena needs to be in Syria. And I think there needs to be some kind of special court created as the -- as they've --
GOLODRYGA: Internally.
RAPP: -- already said.
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
RAPP: Internally.
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
RAPP: But with international experts that follows international standards that's -- in which people have a defense and in which everything follows
the rules that have been developed in so many of these other post conflict situations. And now, the truth needs to come out. Yes.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Stephen, as you said a few years ago, there's better evidence against Assad and his clique than we have against Milosevic in
Yugoslavia, and that speaks volumes.
RAPP: And against the Nazis at Nuremberg.
GOLODRYGA: And in Nuremberg. Yes. Stephen Rapp, thank you so much. These are crucial times that we are in and we'll be following this closely in the
weeks to come. Thank you.
RAPP: Well, great to be with you, Bianna. Bye-bye.
GOLODRYGA: Well, next to the power of love and a wrenching film, Netflix's "Daughters" follows four young girls as they prepare to reunite with their
incarcerated fathers at a special dance in a D.C. prison.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm just getting older and, like, won't be here to see them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One girl said, my dad can't come to the dance because he's in jail. And one girl suggested, why don't we just take the dance in
the jail?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys, it's a golden opportunity to see your daughters and spend time with them. But I'm going to be very honest with
you guys, it's going to be an emotional roller coaster for you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: An emotional rollercoaster indeed to watch. A Sundance Film Festival winner, this documentary is an unflinching look at the impact of
incarceration in America. It's co-directed by music video director Natalie Rae and Angela Patton, activists and founder of "The Date with Dad
Weekend," the program that inspired the film, and they're joining me now both.
I just have to say, Angela and Natalie, thank you so much for bringing us this beautiful, touching, heartbreaking story, all in one. The only words I
can think of is from the mouths of babes. I mean, for a young girl to say, why don't we just do the dance in jail? And here we are.
Angela, let's start with you. This has been a 20-year project. journey, a passion project of yours, your organization, Girls for a Change. And it's
really focused on black girls specifically in helping prepare them for adulthood and the crucial relationship between a father and a daughter.
Talk about your program.
ANGELA PATTON, DIRECTOR, "DAUGHTERS": Yes, Girls for a Change is a nonprofit organization located in Richmond, Virginia, where I am also born
and raised, and I was able to see 20 years ago a gap that black girls faced in my community and really wanted to do more than just prepare them for the
world, I wanted to make sure that we were preparing black girls for the world and the world for black girls.
And it really starts with girls' voices being heard, them being celebrated, and them being valued and also being seen. And so, these girls decided a
way to do that was first by building relationships with their families and specifically their fathers in their lives.
GOLODRYGA: And, Natalie, the film really focuses on four young girls ranging in age from five to fifteen. At the start of the film you have
little Aubrey who's five years old, Santana who's 10, Ja'Ana who's 11, and Raziah who's 15 years old. And all of them in so many ways are wise beyond
their years because of their environment and because of the situation their fathers find themselves in.
Aubrey, I would say, is just the voice of innocence. There's excitement in her eye, a twinkle in her eye, a love for her father who had walked her to
school prior to bringing arrested, their passion, shared passion for music and her constant certificates of excellence at school. Talk to us about
these girls and how their relationship with their fathers and their fathers being incarcerated really impacted their lives and their development.
NATALIE RAE, DIRECTOR, "DAUGHTERS": Thank you for having us. Yes, it was very powerful to watch firsthand, you know, what can happen with a child
like Aubrey and her father Keith, so close. He's teaching her sign language. They do homework together. Walking to school. And that love was -
- is so strong and so palpable and only within a few years you see the distance in which the system creates on this relationship.
And because they're not getting proper visitation, they don't have touch visits, you really see how quickly the families are really ripped apart.
And of course, that's going to have a devastating impact on these girls' mental health, their ability to function and school, graduate, you know, it
impacts every single part of the girl's upbringing in life.
[13:20:00]
GOLODRYGA: And, Angela, this program "Date with Dad" really started in one prison system as a trial experiment. It was -- it's a 10-week process for
these men who are incarcerated to go through. They have sort of a life coach who's helping them along the way before they get to ultimately the
dance with their daughter, and it's just a gut punch and yet so sweet to even note that they were given suits to wear.
Your 80-year-old father shined their shoes at the time so that they could look presentable as if they really were at a prom-like event with their
daughters when they showed up in their beautiful little dresses. The process alone is documented in this film, and you see the excitement both
from their daughters' perspectives, but also from the fathers'. Let's play a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All my dads are still in the magazine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got to bring them out, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bring them out, man. Show us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never went to the prom. I only (INAUDIBLE) my prom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: What did that mean for you, Angela? Just watching this all come together and telling the stories of these fathers, so many of them also not
having childhoods that they can recall, relationships with their own dads and really attempting to break that chain and to develop a bond with their
daughters?
PATTON: Well, what it means to me is that there is a lot of work that we need to do in our community. But we also need to make sure as community
members that we are responsible for making sure that our children have what they need by listening to them, because this project did not start out as
an experiment, it started because I actively listened to what girls said that they needed to feel fulfilled and to feel as though as growing into
their womanhood that they had these special connections with their fathers.
And so, as a community leader and activist, we actually, together, co- creating with these girls, decided that it would be an amazing idea to reach out to their sheriff who is a community political leader that is
supposed to show up wholeheartedly and really address the needs of making sure that we thrive as a community.
And so, I would just say that what it makes me feel is that girls, young people, are resilient, that they have the answer. A lot of times that we
are struggling for. And when you have conversations and also you bring people together, it is unimaginable what you can do, because I see these
girls as unstoppable heroes. And I just look forward to what they have to offer as they become adults and actually see themselves as problem solvers
of things that may not be what they've asked for, but things that may have come up in their lives that they have just been thrown into, but they
actually are resilient enough to understand that they can solve these issues in community.
So, just really a privilege and an honor to be able to be in these spaces and see these families heal and rebuild and sustain these relationships
that are powerful and are necessary for all of us.
GOLODRYGA: And it's changed the families overall, it's not just the children who are impacted, so many of these fathers, I mean, this is really
a striking statistic, 95 percent of the fathers involved in the program haven't re-offended. And this is a commitment they've made not only to
their children, but really to themselves, a second chance to really be fathers to these girls and to bring their families back together.
Natalie, you mentioned the fact that so many of these prisons don't allow, they removed in-person visits. And the fact that they're not even allowed
to touch their family members, it -- there's an emotional toll that that brings to these children, to their fathers, it makes it that much more
difficult for them to stay in touch, as opposed to just a few minutes on a phone call every few weeks. Let's play a clip from the film that highlights
just the power of the touch and why these fathers were warned that as beautiful as that moment will be, it will be just as difficult when they
have to say goodbye to their daughters at the end of this dance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[13:25:00]
PATTON: You know, I can see a girl probably not wanting to take off her dress for a couple of more hours when she gets home because her dad got to
touch that. He's not going to want to get out of the suit because it was touched by his daughter. That's how powerful it is that you want to kind of
remain in that space as long as you can.
The power touch is so meaningful. When children are removed from touching their parent, seeing their parent, hearing their parent's voice, they doubt
the possibility of surviving in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Natalie, what -- why was this element so important for you to include in the film? And I'm wondering what message this could send prisons
and just changing the way the system works to allow for these human moments for these families to spend time together, touching each other, really
giving these fathers an opportunity to think about what life after prison looks like and these girls hope about staying connected to their dads?
RAE: Absolutely. Well, it was the first thing that all the girls and fathers said that they wanted when I asked what would you like to change
about your situation, it was, I just want to be able to touch them. So, that was a very visceral, emotional reaction to what they needed. And with
it, since 2014, pre-pandemic, a lot of the visitation rooms have been taken away and replaced with video monitors and tablets in which family families
have to download an app and actually be charged for face times and some of this type of connection. And so, then the children end up not wanting to do
it and then not end up connecting at all.
We also know that touches a language of love. It connects to and it makes you feel something much deeper that last with you. And so, these -- say now
that touch is actually helps the body fight a traumatic fight or flight system. So, we actually need it for survival, for processing emotions, for
processing trauma, and that those touch visits can really make you stay and feel connected to your sense of self love and loving your family.
So, it's actually just incredibly important and the dance really serves as an example of how powerful one day, one visit can be for the years to come.
And we hope that now that the world has potentially seen what it does when we're separated, we've been through a pandemic and we know that being on
zoom and being on a video screen is not a replacement and doesn't work that, you know, people will get behind this and help these children and be
vocal in their communities to bring back touch visits and protect these children.
GOLODRYGA: And it's not a Hollywood ending story either. I mean, you made the decision to not end the film right after the dance, which you could
have, but to really focus on the reality that these families faced and the years after this dance, many fathers still haven't seen their daughters.
They still remain behind bars. These children have grown up, some of them embittered, really, and they've lost a lot of that innocence that we saw
early on.
But I have to tell you, when I saw those girls walking into the room, I mean, I -- just the tears that that brought on, seeing their fathers,
hugging their daughters, so many of them having the same faces of their fathers, you could even tell whose daughter was whose. It is a really
beautiful, important film and I thank you both, Angela, for this idea and, Natalie, for capturing it so well in this film. Thank you.
PATTON: Thank you for having us today.
RAE: Thank you so much for having us.
GOLODRYGA: And "Daughters" is out now on Netflix. Well, we turn now as a new year, a rapid technological advancement approaches, all eyes are on
A.I. It's what everyone's been talking about. And the new bestselling book, "Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit," is putting
the new technology under the microscope. Taking a look at how it could help us and how it could stop us from hurting ourselves. Co-author and former
Google CEO Eric Schmidt joins Walter Isaacson to discuss.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Bianna. And, Eric Schmidt. Welcome back to the show.
ERIC SCHMIDT, CO-FOUNDER, SCHMIDT FUTURES AND FORMER CEO AND CHAIRMAN, GOOGLE: Thank you, Walter. It's great to see you.
ISAACSON: This new book, which you wrote with the late Dr. Henry Kissinger before he died and Craig Mundie, a long time of Microsoft, is about how
we're supposed to handle A.I., but it's even more philosophical. You say it's a question of human survival, you're addressing. Why do you say that
and why did you call it "Genesis"?
SCHMIDT: We believe, in particular, Dr. Kissinger believed that the A.I. revolution is of the scale of the reformation, that right now we're used to
being the top dog, if you will, and we determine reason we determine outcomes. And with the A.I. revolution, there's always a danger that we're
going to be the dog to their computers. In other words, they're going to tell us what to do.
[13:30:00]
And the book is really a statement of how important human dignity is. The ability to think and to be free, to not be subject to surveillance, all of
the things that are possible on the downside of the A.I. revolution. We also spent a lot of time talking about what A.I. can do. And I'll give you
a simple example. In a few years, all of us believe that you'll have in your pocket 90 percent of Leonardo da Vinci, something you know a lot
about, 90 percent of the greatest physicists, the greatest chemists. What will it be like where each and every one of us have that kind of discovery
capability?
If -- in our book, we start by talking about polymaths, something, again, you know a lot about, because of your previous writing. Polymaths are
really important. They change the course of history. Well, what happens when everyone has their own polymath? We're just not ready as a society for
the implications of this powerful arrival of intelligence.
ISAACSON: Well, one of the things you say, because you're generally a techno optimist, is that sometimes you worry we aren't going fast enough.
What do you mean by that?
SCHMIDT: Well, we have to start by all the things that this A.I. intelligence will provide, much faster cures for diseases. How do you want
to solve climate change? You need new energy. You need A.I. to do that. Universal doctors, universal teachers, getting every human on the planet to
their top potential, making businesses far more efficient, which means more profits, but also more growth, more jobs and so forth. All of those are
going to happen, they're going to happen very, very quickly.
And the downsides are also quite serious. The ability to do cyber-attacks, nation state tensions, misinformation. One of my theories is most of what
you see politically now is because everyone's online and they've all found their special tribal groups and they've all decided that they all believe
the same thing, even though reality is much more subtle than what in the individual seems to believe.
ISAACSON: Do you think this should be left to the technologists like you and Greg Bundy?
SCHMIDT: Well, Dr. Kissinger got started in this almost 10 years ago because he was very clear that people like myself should not be making
these decisions. Let's look at social media. We've now arrived at a situation where we have these huge companies, in which I was part of, and
they all have this huge positive implication for entertainment and culture, but they have significant negative implications in terms of tribalism,
misinformation, individual harm, especially against young people, and especially against young women. None of us foresaw that.
Had -- maybe if we'd had some non-technical people doing this with us, we would have foreseen the impact on society. I don't want us to make that
mistake again with a much more powerful tool.
ISAACSON: You talk about social media and you say that people who are technologists, you were at Google, didn't really foresee some of the
downsides. My colleague, Hari Sreenivasan, has been doing this a lot on this show, talking about the algorithms and how the algorithms incent
depression sometimes, incent enragement, not just engagement. Is it baked into the algorithms? And if so, should we hold social media accountable for
that?
SCHMIDT: We should. And it's simple to understand. I am personally very strongly in favor of human speech, including human speech, which is
terrible and I don't agree with. That's my personal view. But I'm not in favor of computer algorithm speech being the same thing. What they're doing
is boosting based on an algorithm.
So, let's imagine, you and I found a company and we're perfect. We have no biases whatsoever, but we want to maximize revenue. Well, the best way to
maximize revenue is to maximize engagement. And the best way to do that is outrage. Even if you and I, as well-meaning as we can be, no bias, no -- we
want to be truthful and all of that, our system will produce these holes, these cubicles, these caves that people will end up with.
ISAACSON: Do you think we should get rid of what's sometimes called Section 230 protections, which is that part of the law that says you don't
hold a platform accountable for what gets posted and maybe even amplified?
SCHMIDT: You know, Section 230 was passed in roughly 1994. So, it's about 30 years old. We had no idea that the internet would be used for this. And
so, we simply asked -- and I was part of it at the time. We just wanted an exemption for technology and content we didn't own. That doesn't make sense
anymore. There needs to be restrictions on Section 230 for the worst cases. I'm talking about things where there's real harm, harm to people,
especially the young people, we have to change it.
ISAACSON: Would you count harm to democracy in that list?
SCHMIDT: I think democracies are being harmed by the tribalism and by the misinformation, but I doubt we're going to come to an agreement, certainly
not in the U.S., but also in many other countries as to what truth is. So, I think the best way that we can handle social media is basically to say
that if there's real harm, this thing has to get stopped.
If it's a case where I tell you one thing and you say another and it's an open debate, that's probably not going to destroy democracy.
[13:35:00]
ISAACSON: Tell me how these issues are increased, the problems as we move from social media, meaning, you know, networks like X or Facebook to A.I.
SCHMIDT: There are two really big things happening right now in our industry. One is the development of what are called agents, where agents
can do something. So, you can say, I want to build a house. So, you find the architect, go through the land use, buy the house. This can all be done
by computer, not just by humans.
And then, the other thing is the ability for the computer to write code. So, if I say to you, I want to sort of study the audience for this show and
I want you to figure out how to make a variant of my show for each and every person who's watching it, the computer can do that. That's how
powerful the programming capabilities of A.I. are.
We've -- I mean, in my case, I've managed programmers my whole life and they typically don't do what I want. You know, they do whatever they want.
But with a computer, it'll do exactly what you say. And the gains in computer programming from the A.I. systems are frightening. They're both
enticing because they will change the slope.
Right now, the slope of A.I. is like this. And when you have A.I. scientists, that is computers developing AI, the slope will go this, it'll
go wham, right? But that development puts an awful lot of power in the hands of an awful lot of people.
ISAACSON: Let me ask this in a very broad way. We often talk about a duty of care that corporations have, others have. What is the duty of care that
you think A.I. companies should do?
SCHMIDT: Well, I'm all in favor of A.I. companies inventing this new future, and I understand that they will make mistakes and there will be
some initial harm, right? Some bad thing will happen. The secret is not that something bad happens, but that it doesn't happen again.
When we were running Google, their Instagram are now doing other things. We had a rule that if anything happened in the morning, we would fix it by
noon, right? We were on it. And I think that kind of active management of social media and of A.I. in general for consumer products is going to be
crucial.
ISAACSON: You and I first discussed this, I think, with Dr. Kissinger when we were all in China four or five years ago, I think it was. How do you
think since then the Chinese are progressing on A.I.? And one of the things we talked about was they have restrictions on free speech. Is that going to
help them or hurt them in this regard?
SCHMIDT: Well, they believe that those restrictions help them. And obviously, that's horrific. It's a violation of those sort of liberal
western order. But I can't fix that. When I was in China with Dr Kissinger a year and a half ago, I was quite convinced that China was about two years
behind us. It looks like, unfortunately, I was wrong.
And even with all of the chip restrictions that we put in, which Trump put in, President Biden put in as well, all the right, well, many things, the
Chinese have gotten very close to our top models. Now, you sit there and you go, why is this important? Because these are models that can show
planning. They can begin to do physics. They can do math. These models are now at the graduate level of math and physics people, right? True in China
and in the United States.
So, China clearly understands the value of having what is generally called general intelligence. As it applies to its national security, to its
business goals, to its societal goals, and to the surveillance that is characteristic of the state. The west needs to win that battle.
It's really important that the systems that we use reflect American and western liberal values, such as freedom of thought, freedom of expression,
the dignity of the of all the people involved. I'm very, very worried that in this contest they're now so focused that they're not only catching up,
but they will catch up.
And remember that the country or the company that develops the system that is smarter than any human in the world, this is called super intelligence,
can then apply that to itself to get smarter and smarter and smarter. There are people who believe that such a system, when it appears, and we believe
it will appear probably within the next decade, will give that, in this case, country or company, an asymmetric, powerful monopoly for decades to
come. We just don't know.
ISAACSON: This fear that China is catching up in may soon surpasses in A.I., is that an argument to not put too many regulations and restrictions
in the U.S. on the development of A.I.?
SCHMIDT: In America, I think based on what President Trump has said, any existing restrictions are likely to be eliminated. In China, they are also
moving so quickly. Their only restrictions are done after the fact. So, basically, you can do whatever you want to, but if you do something really
bad, they will come and arrest you. So, it's done that way.
[13:40:00]
It's very important right now in America to allow this innovation to occur during this critical time as quickly as we can. Now, I know people say, oh,
that's terrible. That means my privacy will be violated. We'll deal with that if it happens. But right now, the sense of destiny that my industry
has, that somehow we're building something larger than ourselves, that the arrival of this intelligence that I'm discussing is so much powerful than
people appreciate that we have to do it.
I will tell you, by the way, I don't think western democratic systems are ready for this. There are huge implications for this, wealth distribution,
access, privacy, all the things that everyone talks about, but let's make sure we win. I do not want to be -- have China win this one ahead of us.
It's too important.
ISAACSON: Yes, you talk about the danger of too many regulations. Well, now you have the Trump administration coming in. You have David Sacks,
who's very much of a you know, techno progressive techno -- you know, pushing for technology. Very close friend of Elon Musk. How do you think
Trump, David Sacks and others will be looking at A.I.?
SCHMIDT: I'm assuming that they're going to follow a laissez faire, no regulation approach. The president has indicated that he's not going to
continue some of the A.I. regulations that were put in place by President Biden. So, my prediction will be it will start with no regulation, but that
there will be a major project within the next administration to understand the China versus U.S. national security issues of A.I.
ISAACSON: When you talk about the competition with China, you and, of course, Dr. Kissinger spent a whole lot of time in China talk to the top
leadership. Do you think there's a possibility we could end up cooperating with China more or do you think it's inevitably a competition?
SCHMIDT: I spent a lot of years hoping that the collaboration would occur, and there are many people in our industry who think that the arrival and
development of this new intelligence is so important, it should be done in a multinational way. It should be done in the equivalent of CERN, which is
the great physics laboratory, which is global in Switzerland.
The political tensions and the stress over values is so great. There's just no scenario. There's just -- I want to say it again, there's just no
scenario where you can do that.
ISAACSON: You were chairman of the Defense Innovation Board a while back under President Obama, and I think you worked too with that with President
Biden, and I was on the Defense Innovation Board with you, and we looked at A.I. and how that was going to affect warfare, particularly drone warfare.
What do you think the future of warfare can and should be in the era of A.I.?
SCHMIDT: If you study the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Ukrainians who had no Navy and no Air Force were forced to scramble, and they did so
valiantly. I spent lots of time there and they ultimately built relatively simple drones that are now turning into be very complex weapons.
It looks to me like for terrestrial conflict, the correct answer is autonomy, which ultimately means drones. I've personally seen situations in
Ukraine where you have a soldier sitting at a screen drinking coffee, controlling a weapon that's very far away doing whatever job it was doing.
I know -- if you think about war, in our history, thousands of years of history, it was stereotypically a man and a gun shooting the other man with
a gun. That is an antiquated model of war. The correct model -- and obviously war is horrific -- is to have the people well behind and have the
weapons well up front and have them networked and controlled by A.I. The future of war is A.I. networked drones of many different kinds.
ISAACSON: Do humans need to be in the loop?
SCHMIDT: Well, the U.S. rule is called a human in the loop or meaningful human control. So, what will happen is that the computer will produce the
battle plan and the human will authorize it, thereby giving the legitimacy of both authorizing as a human, but also the legitimacy of control and
liability if they make a mistake, that's the likely outcome.
One of the key issues, by the way, is that Russia and China do not have this doctrine. And so, you -- there's always this worry about the Dr.
Strangelove situation where you have an automatic weapon, which makes the decision its own. That would be terrible.
ISAACSON: I'm sure you, like me, know the movie 2001, "A Space Odyssey" and the question of how and computer getting out of control and the humans
having to try to pull the plug on it. Do you think we ought to have a kill switches, a way to pull the plug, and what situations would we use that for
in our A.I. systems?
[13:45:00]
SCHMIDT: We're going to have them. One thought experiment is imagine that you -- that everyone in America has a red button that you press that
disconnects the house from the internet. And you say, well, that's stupid. But imagine a future scenario where an adversary has taken over the
internet is now using it to attack your house, right? So, all of a sudden, these questions of national security that become very personal.
So, I think that you'll see, first, obviously huge monitoring systems, but you will have defensive systems along the lines of the red kill button for
that reason.
ISAACSON: At the end of your book, you say that you have high confidence that we can imbue our machines with the intrinsic goodness that is in
humanity. First of all, are you sure that all of humanity has intrinsic goodness and what about those who don't?
SCHMIDT: Well, look, I think we all understand that there's some percentage of people who are truly evil, terrorists, so forth and so on.
The good news is the vast majority of humans on the planet are well meaning, they're social creatures, they want themselves to do well and they
want their neighbors and especially their tribe to do well. I see no reason to think that we can't put those rules into the computers.
One of the tech companies started its training of its model by putting in a constitution. And the constitution was embedded inside of the model of how
you treat things. Now, of course, we can disagree on what the comp constitution is, but these systems are under our control. There are humans
who are making the decisions to train them.
And furthermore, the systems that you use whether it's ChatGPT or Gemini or COD or what have you, have all been carefully examined after they were
produced to make sure they don't have any really horrific rough edges. So, humans are directly involved in the creation of these models and they have
a responsibility to make sure that nothing horrendous occurs as a result of them.
ISAACSON: Eric Schmidt, thank you so much for joining us.
SCHMIDT: Thank you again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And now, back to our top story of Syria. The years long war there was one of the hardest conflicts to cover, and some of the best
storytelling and reporting came from Syrian journalists. Women like Waad Al-Kateab, who picked up her camera in 2011 at the peaceful start of the
Arab Spring, which then turned into a brutal civil war.
For a year, she provided a window into her war-ravaged City of Aleppo, and then made it into a feature documentary with another filmmaker, Edward
Watts. It's called "For Sama," a letter to her infant daughter, and it won the best documentary prize in Cannes. Here is a clip from the trailer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Sama, Sama. Sama, I've made this film for you. I need you to understand. What we were fighting for.
I love you so much. Evan more than the snow.
There's lots of airstrikes today, right?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Christiane, spoke to both Waad Al-Kateab and her co-director, Edward Watts, in 2019 in her London studio.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: You call this "For Sama." How did that come about? Why did you decide to take this format for
your daughter?
WAAD AL-KATEAB, CO-DIRECTOR, "FOR SAMA": It was something we've -- I knew that from the beginning but we were discovering this through the process
that we did like for two years. We felt that all the conversation through the material was telling everything that this is for Sama. There was like a
natural conversation, as anyone around the world, every one of us like speaks with our child even if we still just pregnant.
And it was just like kind of the conversation, natural one, which it was through the material itself. And toward my daughter and towards something.
You have seen it too. So --
EDWARD WATTS, CO-DIRECTOR, "FOR SAMA": Yes. It was really like breathing through the footage that that was -- yes, that that was what the footage
was about at heart, was the relationship between Waad and Sama.
AMANPOUR: It was. But did you make a decision to make that and to keep going back and forth? Because if you look at the trailer and, obviously,
we've seen your reportage through the war, it is relentlessly really dark, it's a terrible war. The Siege of Aleppo is a terrible, terrible thing. The
bodies piled up. What did you think when you had to take all her footage and make it palatable?
WATTS: Well, you know, the thing that was so incredible about what this woman achieved and what she managed to film was the fact that her footage
throughout this huge archive, when I saw it for the first time, I saw the full spectrum of human life in this kind of conflict situation.
So, the horror was there, the human suffering, as you talked about, but also so much joy, so much about the spirit of people in this kind of
situations. So, it was more just trying to say, like, it was so much. How can we squeeze all of this life that was in the footage in the archive and
contain it in a manageable form for the cinema?
[13:50:00]
AMANPOUR: So, in the opening, sort of narration of yours, you say, I made this film for you. You're addressing your daughter. I need you to
understand why me and your father made the choices that we did. What we were fighting for. What were your fighting for? Why -- I mean, later on in
the film you say, will you forgive me? Will you forgive me for staying and, in fact, for leaving?
AL-KATEAB: Yes. It was -- we have fears as Syrians all the time about our story will not be told in our voices. We were all like against this -- the
propaganda that the Assad regime and the Russians were trying to just destroy the dream that we have of freedom and of dignity.
And like we were -- every parents in Syria and everyone who lived through the first year and two years of the peaceful demonstration, we have that
fear that maybe this will not be really reached through the next generation.
So, in one part of this, I really wanted to tell her about like what we then went through, how we started this revolution and why. And it's not
just for Sama, for all the other children of Syria, for all the world outside really to understand like what we went through as Syrian people
dream of freedom.
AMANPOUR: Let's take a few elements that we just saw in the trailer because, again, I think the world is familiar with the barrel bombs and the
chlorine gas and the chemical weapon and the slaughter in the hospitals but they're not familiar with the individual stories of the family, your
neighbors who you profile, the little boy on the balcony who had his --
AL-KATEAB: Yes.
AMANPOUR: -- you know, hand -- his head in his hands and he was afraid that he would be taken away from Aleppo, right.
AL-KATEAB: Yes.
AMANPOUR: This city under siege.
AL-KATEAB: It's really so complicated to understand like how it was outside could react for something. It's more about like, unfortunately, not
just like the bombing was familiar, also like bombing hospitals, killing children, all this started to be as numbers on the news or for people
watching like their news at home after dinner. And all these things were just like coming through the mind of the people and then just like move on
to their normal life.
I felt that maybe this story in the personal way could really affect every parents, every mother, every human being around the world to start think
about one step forward to do something for these people.
AMANPOUR: And, Edward, you know, Waad came out eventually after Aleppo fell and she had -- you managed to bring out hard drives and hours and
hours.
WATTS: Yes.
AMANPOUR: How many hundreds of hours of footage were you looking through?
WATTS: Over 500 hours. She brought it out.
AMANPOUR: 500.
WATTS: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So, it's the whole story of siege?
WATTS: The whole -- yes. And she'd been filming, you know, little bits and bobs every day pretty much through five years. So, it's beyond the siege.
It was right the way back to the very first days of the peaceful protest. An incredible huge expense. And I mean, we started going through it
together. I think we narrowed it down to 300 hours --
AL-KATEAB: Yes.
WATTS: -- that felt directly relevant. But that was still a huge amount of footage.
AMANPOUR: Because you had to get it down to?
WATTS: To 95 minutes.
AL-KATEAB: Yes.
WATTS: Which was quite a task.
AMANPOUR: And what did you think, Edward? I mean, you have been a documentary producer, editor for a long, long time.
WATTS: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And here you are partnered up with Waad now, who has come out of Syria and has handed you her life's work, up until now, and you've got to
help edit it and make it a story that may not have exactly been what you thought it might be or how it should unfold. Give me the creative process.
WATTS: Well, actually, that opportunity to collaborate in that way was -- it was an honor to begin with. But it was also made to film, I think, as
strong as it is because both of us were coming with our own perspectives. I was trying to think about like what to say your average in London or New
York who is coming off the streets, living a different life and then you're taking them to the heart of Aleppo, into the heart of Waad's life. How can
you bring that person in? How can you keep them with you on this very tough story? And Waad was --
AL-KATEAB: Yes.
WATTS: -- looking from the Syrian point of view, the insider's point of view. And so, we had a lot of very robust conversations.
AMANPOUR: I bet you did.
WATTS: I would think. Yes.
AL-KATEAB: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Some creative, you know, context there.
WATTS: Big time, you know.
AL-KATEAB: Yes. But the first really the main thing was how we so were honest to each other and we were like whatever his thoughts or my thoughts,
we were really so honest. And like we trust each other.
WATTS: Yes.
AL-KATEAB: We tried to work on this for two years. At the end of the thing was like both of us are so satisfied in the story itself and of --
WATTS: Yes.
AL-KATEAB: -- the real things that happened. So, it was also like my honor that we have that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: It's great to see them sitting there with Christiane a few years ago. And finally, after more than a year in Russian captivity, Wall
Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich posts his first article. Working with a team of colleagues, Gershkovich investigates his own detention and
release, writing, I set out to identify the man who had taken me and to learn more about the spy unit that had carried out his orders.
[13:55:00]
The report identifies the man allegedly responsible for his captivity, Lieutenant General Dmitry Minaev, leader of the Department for
Counterintelligence Operations, called the DKRO.
What's particularly remarkable about this article is that it is unremarkable. Gershkovich is back to doing what he does best, and that is
reporting on Russia. And it's fantastic to see him back at work.
Well, that is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can
always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media.
Thanks so much for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
