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Amanpour
Interview with White House Council of Economic Advisers Former Chair Jared Bernstein; Interview with "Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea" Co-Author and Former CNN Asia Correspondent Mike Chinoy; Interview with "Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea" Co-Author Kathi Zellweger; Interview with "AI Native" Author and Former President of Google China Kai- Fu Lee. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 20, 2026 - 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: The Pentagon is delaying the delivery of missiles that our partners have already paid for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Ukraine wonders where is the United States? We'll look at the latest thinking from the White House and what it could mean for the
battlefield.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You're going to have $5,000 in your pocket, and economic success for our country like we have never, ever seen before.
GOLODRYGA: -- President Trump rallies his base as the clock ticks down to the midterms. Economist Jared Bernstein joins me on inflation, U.S.
workers, and whether the A.I. boom is a bubble about to burst.
Plus, will Kim Jong-un and Trump meet again? As speculation mounts, we look back at 1990s North Korea, and the heroic story of Miss Kathi, who brought
life-saving care to starving families.
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAI-FU LEE, AUTHOR, "AI NATIVE" AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF GOOGLE CHINA: I think any assumption that Chinese companies are inherently out to build
something bad or refuse to participate is a very naive demonization of Chinese companies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China, tells Walter Isaacson why he believes the fear of Beijing's A.I. ambitions has gone too
far.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
With two weeks to go until the midterms, President Trump is out campaigning hard, hoping to avoid losing both the House and the Senate. But the polls
aren't looking good for him. With his approval rating at a record low of 31 percent, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, a major concern among
voters is the economy.
The president appears to be hoping that pressuring Ukraine into stopping its strikes on Russian diesel facilities might help ease costs for American
consumers. This, combined with a Russia diesel deal, has even some Republicans scratching their heads over Trump's apparent softening stance
on Putin.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is increasingly outspoken about the shift from the White House as the country braces for another winter of war.
Kevin Liptak is following all of these developments from Washington and joins me now with the details. So, Kevin as we're seeing continued strikes
on civilians by Russia in Ukraine, the president seems to be doubling down on blaming Ukraine for the state of the war, and yesterday said that,
quote, "Russia has been fine on Ukraine and they haven't been doing much."
What explains this renewed assessment or this renewed anger against Zelenskyy?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: What are you hearing from experts?
LIPTAK: Yes. And it is remarkable. It's clearly now back to the level of relationship when they two were in the Oval Office and President Trump was
shouting at Zelenskyy just a month into his term.
When you talk to White House officials, they do say that this is rooted in part by the president's political frustrations, that because energy prices
you know, gas and diesel in the United States are higher, he's catching the blame from voters, and the president I think clearly looking to Zelenskyy
as a scapegoat in a lot of ways for some of those political woes that he's experiencing now two weeks before the midterm elections.
The other, you know, backdrop to the president's frustration here is this renewed attempt to try and come up with a peace plan to end the conflict.
And what the president and his team seem to have devised is a strategy that would offer these economic incentives to Vladimir Putin and to Russia in
order to convince them to come back to the negotiating table a- and to come up with some sort of negotiated settlement.
And you see that in what Steve Witkoff is doing in Oslo coming with this plan. Officials describe it as sort of on two parallel tracks. One is
trying to convince Ukraine that the U.S. will come up with security guarantees to ensure that Russia doesn't invade further once the war ends.
That would also include an economic package for reconstruction in Ukraine once the war ends.
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The other part of this parallel track peace effort is directed towards Russia, to come up with some economic incentives to Putin to come to the
negotiating table. And that, I think, explains why the president has taken so many steps, really just over the last week, that seemed intended to
rehabilitate Russia in the global economy, whether it's holding off sanctions as part of the Lindsey Graham package, whether it is allowing
Russia to sell its diesel on the international marketplace, all of these steps that really amount to a remarkable reversal of long-standing U.S.
position when it comes to this conflict, which is to support Ukraine, the president very much backing off all of that.
And I think, as you look at what he's been saying, clearly, his frustrations with Zelenskyy are rooted in part in this idea that Zelenskyy
keeps targeting those Russian diesel refineries, which the president says is jacking up prices in the U.S. But he's also accusing Zelenskyy of not
being willing to agree to any ceasefire package, when in fact it is Russia that began the war, and presumably Russia could end the war if it halted
its invasion. And so, it is, I think, a very fraught moment in this U.S.- Ukraine relationship.
Now, from Oslo, Witkoff will be going to Russia in the hopes of meeting with Vladimir Putin to try, in the words of one U.S. official, to test this
proposition to see whether even this is enough to get Putin to agree to further peace talks.
GOLODRYGA: Similar propositions have been put on the table, and they, too, have failed. Kevin, we also see President Zelenskyy not holding back and
accusing the United States of withholding not only intelligence, but also patriot interceptors.
Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio spoke with President Zelenskyy today by phone and then spoke with reporters and said
that nothing is being intentionally withheld or deliberately denied. What are you hearing about what is actually going on?
LIPTAK: Yes. And what administration officials insist is that the U.S. is not punishing Ukraine by not providing some of these Patriot missiles.
Instead, they say that this is a result of stockpile problems. Of course, we know that those were aggravated by the war in Iran. President Trump and
American officials have been worried now for months that those stockpiles are dwindling, that the Patriots that have been used to defend American
positions in the Middle East are running in short supply. That is part of what American officials say is happening in this instance.
The other, I think, unexplained question that we have about what's going on in Ukraine is the haltage or at least slowing of the Starlink services that
Ukraine relies on for its missiles and drones. The U.S. has said that that wasn't intentional, but they haven't really offered an explanation for what
really went on there.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. SpaceX, Elon Musk pointing the finger at the White House, the White House pointing the finger at SpaceX and Elon Musk and Marco Rubio
saying nothing is being deliberately denied. At the very least, the timing is extremely suspect here. Kevin Liptak, thank you.
And now, let's drill down on the economic picture ahead of the midterms. President Trump has promised $5,000 checks for every adult American citizen
if the GOP retains control of the House and Senate, a proposal that would cost more than $1 trillion. One area where the president can claim success
is the stock market, which has reached record highs on his watch. But even that economic bright spot carries some nervousness, with some observers
fearing the growth is thanks in large part to an A.I. bubble.
To try to make sense of it all. Let's bring in Jared Bernstein, an economist and former chair of the White House Council on Economic Advisers
under President Biden. Jared, good to see you again.
So, we know that Trump entered office for a second term promising to bring prices down. He continues to blame President Biden for high prices for
inflation. Now, voters are heading to the polls in just two weeks' time. And as you see from poll taken after poll taken, there is a lot of concern
about the economy and frustration about how the president has handled it.
So, looking beyond just the stock market and even the headline growth figures, what is the state of the U.S. economy right now?
JARED BERNSTEIN, FORMER CHAIR, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: The state is one in which affordability is a real constraint for the
majority of American families and households.
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They're having more trouble than they expected, making ends meet when it comes to groceries, housing, health care, paying for their utility bills.
All of these are racking up and they know that those prices are exacerbated by precisely what you've been talking about recently on the show,
particularly tariffs, the war in Iran, also some of the developments in the A.I. sector.
And the bottom line is that people's hourly pay is actually lagging inflation. The real buying power of their paycheck is down. Interest rates
are up. Prices are up. And all of this is in direct contrast to exactly what the president said he would do for them. The problem for the
president, for the Republicans, is not just that these affordability problems are across the land. It's that people know who to blame. And
that's really what's showing up in the polls.
GOLODRYGA: I wonder if there's a bit of deja vu for you here, because, again, looking at these numbers as a whole, unemployment around 4 percent,
retail sales are strong, the industrial output is high. And yet you see this dissatisfaction from American consumers.
You were in a similar position where you were having to defend the economy under President Biden. How much of this is based on how people are just
feeling, as opposed to how they are actually doing? And we know that gut instinct is what drives a lot of people to make political decisions when
they go, actually, to vote. What is your advice to your successor in this very position now?
BERNSTEIN: Probably try to do less harm. We were definitely -- everything you said is correct. We were stuck with very much the same kind of split
between some pretty good overall economic indicators and how people were feeling about the economy. And, of course, people aren't pulling the voting
lever based on the latest productivity or GDP report. They're pulling it based on how they feel.
But there is a big difference here, which is we were definitely trying to make things better. And this team keeps kicking the ball in their own goal.
Simply ending the war in Iran -- I'm not saying that's a simple thing to do -- but simply ending the war in Iran and ceasing and desisting on the
tariffs would take the inflation rate down close to a percentage point, which is a very big deal for everything we're talking about.
So, my advice would be, I guess, twofold. One, don't try to tell people they're doing better than they think they are, because that will never
work. And two, don't make things worse.
GOLODRYGA: So, I asked you how your successor should respond. Let me ask you another question. I'm sure you get asked, off-camera at least, a lot.
And that is how the Fed should be responding to all of this. You've got high energy costs. They're pushing prices up. They're squeezing consumers.
Is this temporary? Will this all come back once the war ends? When does the war end? Would keeping rates high now contain inflation, or would it just
put more pressure on the economy and the jobs market?
BERNSTEIN: Well, of course, those two dynamics are very much intertwined. If the Fed, quote, "puts more pressure on the economy," that is, if it taps
the brake with higher interest rates, that's supposed to slow down inflation. And inflation has been well above their target, not for a month
or a quarter, but for five plus years.
So, I think there is a very coherent argument that says the Fed needs to keep putting pressure on interest rates, whether they raise at their
meeting at the end of this month or whether they wait some time, maybe out of respect for the midterms and staying away from politics. That's somewhat
immaterial. That's very near-term kind of concerns.
Broadly speaking, they really have to get inflation under control. And they're particularly concerned about this idea of inflationary
expectations. If people sort of lose faith in the Fed's ability to control the inflation rate, that in itself makes the prospects for higher inflation
a lot more likely.
So, keeping inflation and keeping inflationary expectations, quote, "anchored," that's the phrase they like to use, means that they have to be
very vigilant about this. And that's probably points you in the direction of more hikes versus a pause or certainly versus any kind of a cut.
GOLODRYGA: We know how the president will likely respond if the Fed does decide on more hikes. Another phenomenon that you did not have to deal with
is concerns perhaps about the economy being too focused, too much driven by one industry, and that is A.I. And you argue that A.I. is a financial
bubble because spending is racing ahead of revenue.
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No doubt that this is a sort of a game changing technology that is evolving very quickly. So, why do you see a bubble, Jared, right now, rather than
perhaps upfront investment to a transformative technology and something that that transformative technology requires?
BERNSTEIN: Great way of framing the question, because I do see what you just said, which is a lot of upfront investment in a transformative
technology. The work that I've done mostly with Ryan Cummings on A.I. as a financial bubble should never be taken to take anything away from the
potential transformational impact of this super impressive technology. And maybe for many super concerning and scary technology.
But you can separate that perspective growth or productivity kind of observation from this gap between the A.I. spend, which is through the
roof, to use the technical term, and the expectations of A.I. revenues. That gap is leading investors to get increasingly impatient about when
these firms might turn a profit and whether they'll do so within a time frame that investors are comfortable with.
When we started out writing about an A.I. bubble, we were kind of lonely. There is now a much bigger crowd that's concerned about this. Many
investors view this trade as overcrowded. They're starting to talk about getting into more safe parts of the market. And when you see a kind of a
spooking event, like when CoreWeave recently got -- showed some of their earnings reports that were of great concern, and there was some data on
revenues that leaked from OpenAI, you see investors really starting to exhibit the precise kinds of nervousness that we worried about, given this
really multi-trillion-dollar gap between spend and prospective revenues.
So, you can have a financial bubble, and I think we probably do, and still be talking about an ultimately transformative technology.
GOLODRYGA: So, if this is a bubble that does end up bursting beyond just Silicon Valley and early investors here, how would that bubble impact the
overall economy?
BERNSTEIN: Well, here I have some probably less good news than people would like to hear, or at least less good speculation. Many folks' answer
to that question goes back to the dot-com bubble that burst at the end of the '90s. And they argue that that really wasn't that big a deal in terms
of, say, GDP growth. And it wasn't. GDP growth -- you know, the growth of the overall economy kind of flattened, and the unemployment rate did go up
two points. But the dot-com bubble burst wasn't a big macroeconomic event.
Unfortunately, the extent of A.I. investment is multiples of that from the dot-com bubble. So, if this bubble burst, instead of a very mild and
unnoticeable decline in GDP, we would probably see the overall economy contracting by maybe a point and a half, maybe two points, which is, you
know, a big deal, we expect the unemployment rate to go up considerably more than the two points that it went up when the dot-com bubble burst.
So, if the A.I. bubble, given its magnitude, should burst, we see some pretty significant macroeconomic damage. But there's another alternative,
which is not that the bubble bursts, but that the bubble gradually deflates. And this is kind of what I was describing a second ago. A lot of
investors are kind of making their way towards the exit, spooked by some of what they're seeing in terms of the lack of profitability in the sector.
But if that's not a rush for the exits among the investor class writ large, then you'd see a more gradual deflating of a bubble than a more violent
popping.
GOLODRYGA: Another concern for consumers is energy costs. And that is something clearly the president is focused on right now and seemingly
scapegoating Ukraine for, despite the fact that there is a war in Iran. The Strait of Hormuz has become a choke point. And we've just seen, speaking of
A.I., data centers consume a lot more energy as well.
But as it relates to diesel specifically and the president's surprising and controversial diesel deal with Russia, he's saying that that will bring
relief. I know economists say that that would be marginal at best. So, does the economic benefit justify the advantage this would give Moscow?
BERNSTEIN: Well, that's an interesting question for me because it kind of combines economics and geopolitics.
[13:20:00]
On the economics, where my expertise is, I'm right where my brother and sister economists are. The magnitude of what we're talking about here is
not enough to move the needle in any significant way that American consumers will feel.
Remember, we like to say over here, cars run on gas, economies run on diesel. So, much of what we consume, 80, 90 percent of our foods, for
example, at some point is in a truck that's got diesel in its tank. So, this is a real problem for the consumer. It takes us back to the
affordability concerns that we discussed early on in this interview.
From my perspective, the answer to your question is a very firm no. That the kind of advantage that the president is giving here to the aggressor,
to Russia, to Putin, to that authoritarian regime, is just another reminder of how he tends to be much kinder to America's enemies than America's
friends. And I think that's terrible foreign policy. But at least from an affordability perspective, he continues to really whack the American
consumer by prolonging the war in Iran.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And now, two weeks before the election, the president also announced $8 billion in aid for farmers struggling with diesel costs. So,
this is clearly top of mind for him and the Republican Party.
Jared Bernstein, great to have you on. Really appreciate your perspective and expertise. Former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Thanks for
joining the show.
BERNSTEIN: Thank you. My pleasure.
GOLODRYGA: And still to come, a rare look inside North Korea through the eyes of a humanitarian worker who spent decades helping its most
vulnerable. That's after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Could Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un possibly meet next month at a summit in China? The U.S. president seemed to downplay the prospects of
that happening Monday, but told reporters that he and the North Korean leader have a, quote, "very good relationship."
In the 1990s, North Korea was even more secretive than it is today and in the grip of a devastating famine. Estimates vary, but studies suggest that
many hundreds of thousands of people died, a period termed the arduous march. But the woman who took these photographs you're looking at managed
to reach the country to try to help.
Kathi Zellweger made dozens of visits, trying to alleviate disaster and get ordinary people what they needed to survive. It was a lonely effort, but
one that saved thousands of lives. Now, she's telling her story in a new book, "Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea." And she joins us alongside
her co-author, former CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy. Welcome, both of you. Congratulations on the book. Thank you so much, Kathi, for writing it,
Mike, for joining us and your help here, given your years of coverage.
And I want to do -- I want to start with you, Mike, because the president is once again touting his close relationship, as you heard, with Kim Jong-
un. A meeting next month remains uncertain. But would another summit at this point actually achieve anything?
MIKE CHINOY, AUTHOR, "MISS KATHI: SAVING LIVES IN NORTH KOREA" AND FORMER CNN ASIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, for Kim Jong-un, it might achieve something
because he's just hosted Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
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So, to have Donald Trump come to Pyongyang, come to his turf, would be something that would be a feather in his cap and would help him
domestically. But I think the chances are quite unlikely at this point. And I think Kim would drive a very hard bargain. He'd be asking for recognition
of North Korea as a nuclear state and he'd be looking for ways to weaken the U.S.-South Korea alliance, both of which I think are problematic from
the American point of view. So, it's very iffy.
GOLODRYGA: And since the last summit, his nuclear arsenal has only grown stronger, as have his ties with Russia. What is the state, Mike, currently
of the U.S. relationship with North Korea?
CHINOY: There isn't much of a relationship. After the failure of the Hanoi summit that Kim Jong-un had with Donald Trump when President Trump, in his
first term, walked out of that summit just as the North Koreans were signaling some flexibility, Kim really changed North Korea's whole
strategic posture, which had been predicated on trying to secure the viability and survival of his regime through a rapprochement with the
United States. Instead, he really threw in his lot with the Russians and the Chinese and wrote off the Americans. And I think that's still very much
the position that he takes.
GOLODRYGA: Kathi, let's turn to your book. You take us beyond and behind the military parades to the people who were living there. Take us back to
your first visits during the famine. What did you see that the outside world could not?
KATHI ZELLWEGER, AUTHOR, "MISS KATHI: SAVING LIVES IN NORTH KOREA": Well, it was very hard to see all the starving children in institutions or
sometimes even in families. It was a really, really tough time. And also, hospitals were badly equipped, had little or no medicine, often no running
water, only a couple of hours of electricity. It was terrible. But let's hope that this -- oh, I do think the situation has now improved a bit more,
probably in Pyongyang than in the rest of the country.
GOLODRYGA: Well, this at the time especially was a hermetically sealed country for I would imagine everyone that you engaged with. You may have
been the first Westerner that they had ever seen. Just talk about how you were able to break through any perceptions that they had about you and to
gain ultimately their trust.
ZELLWEGER: I think it also had to do that I made many repeat visits. And with that, I could gradually build up trust because to build up trust and
relationships is a time-consuming project. And because sometimes I would go there five times a year, meet more or less the same people, that really
helped. And gradually, with a lot of negotiations, we managed or I managed to go back to the areas which we assumed were much worse off.
And that was mainly the East Coast, because it is very, very mountainous there. And that means little arable land. So, people had less food to eat
and were suffering more. And we gradually could extend the Caritas aid to the East Coast.
GOLODRYGA: Mike, you --
ZELLWEGER: And one story I remember, I was there with the Caritas delegation. And there were always people from different countries,
including an American. And I introduced this chap to my North Korean counterpart. And the guy looked very amazed, shook his hand. They shook
hands. And then the last time in my life did I think I would shake hands with an American. It was very moving. I can tell you.
GOLODRYGA: Wow. I bet it was. You first went to North Korea in 1995. We were just looking at images of these very thin, under malnourished
children. I want to read an excerpt from this book. You describe a hospital as such. There was no soap or disinfectant. There were no drugs, although
the place was surprisingly clean. The IV drips were attached to unsterilized Fanta or mineral water bottles.
[13:30:00]
The hospital director, his face lined with fatigue, told me several children were dying every month and pleaded for help. I was struck by how
quiet it was.
I think about orphanages in the '90s in Romania and even Russia, where we would hear the same description of just how quiet these children were when
you expect to hear crying and all of the sounds of young, healthy children. That wasn't the case here. How did the experience change you personally,
Kathi?
ZELLWEGER: Well, it was heartbreaking to see that. On the other hand, seeing the misery also encouraged me to go on and to help as good as I
could, of course, with the assistance of our international Caritas network. And that helped to bring in huge shipments of food, mostly rice, but later
on also other food items. We moved then to rehabilitating county hospitals and also helped the children in institutions with daily necessities.
GOLODRYGA: There, we're looking at images and video of you from 1997 from Pyongyang.
Mike, you covered North Korea for years. I'm curious, what did Kathi's experience together on this project reveal to you about North Korea that
perhaps you weren't able to glean from your years as a correspondent?
CHINOY: Well, I think it's fair to say that as a journalist, you're much more limited. One of the things that's so remarkable about Kathi is that
she had access that not only almost no aid worker had, but certainly no journalist ever had.
I think what makes our book, "Miss Kathi," so different is that most of the literature about North Korea is either about the diplomacy surrounding the
nuclear program and the missile program or its accounts of defectors. But what you don't get is a sense of what the ordinary life of North Koreans is
like.
And Kathi visiting every single province, going to places that were off limits to almost everybody else, meeting families, interacting with people
that visitors like myself on the many trips I made for CNN never had access to, paints a much richer, more nuanced portrait of a much more complex and
multidimensional society than North Korea is often portrayed in the media.
GOLODRYGA: Kathi, how do you hold the regime? There we see video and footage of you at the same time, Mike, in 1997, reporting from Pyongyang.
Kathi, how do you hold a regime accountable for the abuses committed without deepening North Koreans isolation as a people?
ZELLWEGER: It's a difficult question to answer. And at the time the famine was -- I mean, certainly the officials were also very, very concerned what
was happening to their country. And they were very grateful for the aid provided. But at the beginning, it was very difficult to convince donors
that there was a crisis and that aid was definitely needed.
So, initially, perhaps it was a slow start. But then when I could take in the camera and show the picture with interviews with CNN and other news
agencies, that helped to show the reality.
GOLODRYGA: And, Mike, while you were working on this project, perhaps reflecting back on your work, I mean, it is sort of a fine line to balance
of not wanting to be used as the regime's propaganda. But at the same time, that the access that someone like Kathi has, is this a lesson for perhaps
more correspondents, especially trying to report from authoritarian countries to be able to work with people like Kathi to have a better sense
of what's actually happening inside the country and able to change that or make a change?
CHINOY: Well, I think it's very important in covering a country like North Korea, to try and keep in mind that 99 percent of the people in North Korea
are not engaged in nuclear negotiations, are not trying to escape, but are simply ordinary people trying to survive. These were the kinds of people
that to whom Kathi had access that I as a journalist had very limited access.
[13:35:00]
And so, I think in balancing out the kind of hard political news, it's important to remember that this is a living, breathing society full of
ordinary people struggling to survive. And to the extent that one can capture that, you paint a much richer picture of the society. And in our
book, "Ms. Kathi," that's what we tried to do, to give a sense of North Korea in a way that other people haven't really portrayed it.
GOLODRYGA: If you have any, perhaps, insight into how North Koreans are reacting to the president's, President Trump's approach to Kim Jong-un,
constantly talking about how close they are, their warm relationship, the love letters that they exchanged. How is that being filtered through to
locals?
ZELLWEGER: Well, I would say the majority, the big majority of the people does not know all this. Because their life is three big worries. Do we have
enough to eat? Is nobody ill? Are the children going to school? And both parents have to work very hard. That leaves very little room to think about
anything else than making life perhaps a little bit better.
CHINOY: And I would simply add that I think Kim Jong-un is not a sentimental person. President Trump may talk about what a wonderful
friendship he had. But Kim Jong-un is a very hard-headed, tough-minded leader who's got clear ideas of what his national interest is. If that
involves making nice with Donald Trump, he'll do it. But there's certainly no sentiment on Kim Jong-un's part, I don't think.
GOLODRYGA: Kathi, final question to you. Those children, those babies that you were visiting there and met in the mid to late '90s would now be, if
they're still alive, approaching 30 years old. I don't know if you stay in touch with anybody. But what are your hopes for them and their families
today and for the future?
ZELLWEGER: You know, over the many years I have been going in and out of North Korea, and I lived there for five years, I also saw changes in the
society. And especially among people born during the famine or after, I felt their mindsets were changing because they had no longer access or did
no longer get government handouts. So, very soon they had to think of, how can I make ends meet? And that changed their way of thinking.
So, I'm optimistic that if that goes on and Kim Jong-un really wants to develop the countryside too with this new policy of 20 by 10, that things
may get better, not only in Pyongyang, but also in the rest of the country.
GOLODRYGA: It is reassuring.
ZELLWEGER: And I just -- personally, I just wish the North Korean people a better life.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, I think we can all agree with that. And a good way to end this show. A bit of optimism here, Kathi Zellweger. Thank you so much, Mike
Chinoy, as well, co-authors of "Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea."
And still to come, we turn our attention to the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. A.I. scientist Kai-Fu Lee joins Walter Isaacson to
discuss how A.I. could profoundly reshape employment on a global scale.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:40:00]
GOLODRYGA: Now, as experts raise concerns about the A.I. bubble, they're also sounding the alarm about how fast the technology is advancing. The
U.S. and China are racing to lead the world in A.I., and there's little sign that that's slowing down.
Our next guest argues that instead of competing, the two superpowers should be working together to put guardrails on the technology. A.I. scientist and
former president of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, joins Walter Isaacson to discuss how the technology could transform businesses and reshape future
employment for better or worse.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Bianna. And, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, welcome to the show.
KAI-FU LEE, AUTHOR, "AI NATIVE" AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF GOOGLE CHINA: Thank you, Walter.
ISAACSON: In your very timely book, "AI Native," you have a sentence I'm going to read to you, which is, this is a transformation far more profound
than the industrial revolution, and its impact is being felt not in decades, but in quarters. What has surprised you the most in the past six
months?
LEE: In the last six months, the improvement of A.I. actually improved faster than before, not slower. Usually as technologies improve, they reach
some kind of an asymptote. But A.I. is improving faster for several reasons.
One is A.I. is learning to code much better than people, and that accelerates the speed of software development. Any software can be
developed very cheaply. No longer do you need expensive software engineers. Secondly, A.I. is learning to improve itself. This is called recursive
self-improvement, and that removes the human in the loop. You no longer need 2,000 scientists trying different ideas, and A.I. improves itself.
Now, the 2,000 scientists can still, you know, put icing on the cake, but A.I. is now learning to improve itself.
ISAACSON: Well, wait, let me drill down on what you just said, which is its ability to remove humans from the loop. Why is that a good thing?
LEE: Well, for the speed of increasing intelligence, it's a good thing. For many things in the company, if in my company, I remove me as the CEO in
the loop, that's not a good thing, because A.I. cannot be accountable. And as a CEO, as a manager, you will need a person to take accountability. So,
in that sense, A.I. cannot be accountable.
ISAACSON: But isn't that the problem we're facing, which is these autonomous agents suddenly acting unaccountably?
LEE: That's why those cases need better guardrails. And also, in many cases, they should have a human in the loop. When I talked earlier about
A.I. self-improvement, that's purely based on the its intelligence is increasing by -- without as much human involvement, and it's making itself
smarter. And that, I think, is not a difference from making decisions that could lose tons of money or break a law.
ISAACSON: Your book is a really useful guide for how should I apply A.I. to my business, to my life, to my corporation. Tell me, what are companies
getting wrong about how they apply A.I. to their business?
LEE: Most CEOs still think about A.I. as a technology or a software, and they delegate to the CIO to implement a model or a capability or to
implement an agent for different departments, such as customer service or legal or finance.
Now, these agents are useful in and of themselves, but they are nothing more than some cost reduction. But I think if we think about A.I. getting
so much smarter, it's like having an IQ 300 person enter your company. And having that person being a customer service rep is really underutilizing
the person's capability.
[13:45:00]
So, in my book, "AI Native," I talk about when we have an A.I. this smart, it should do the most mission-critical tasks in a company, such as
increasing revenue, increasing profitability, increasing growth, innovating new products, or helping the CEO manage the company better. So, these are
the kinds of products that my company, ZeroOne.AI, develops. And I think people who really want to do A.I. transformation should be thinking about
how they can use A.I. for these high-value tasks, in addition to using it for small convenience or small cost savings.
ISAACSON: You have a unique perspective. You were born in Taiwan, educated in the United States. You spent years with American technology companies in
China. When we're talking about A.I.'s development now, all the people we talk about are kind of worried. They say, we need guardrails. We should be
-- and people say, maybe we should hit the pause button. And then they say, but we can't do that because then China will beat us. Give me your
perspective on that.
LEE: I think China is doing a great job as the Android of the A.I. ecosystem. U.S. is the iPhone equivalent. So, the same way that iPhone led
the way, Android followed closely. iPhone made the money, and Android had more market share. That's the path we're on. So, I think --
ISAACSON: Does that mean the Chinese one will be open, which is kind of what Android is, a bit more of an open-source?
LEE: Yes, most Chinese models are open-source, and that's why they're being adopted widely. Open-source has the advantage of being cheaper and
sometimes even free, if you already have the hardware. And also, it has the advantage that you don't have to send your data to the cloud because you
can run it on your server or the PC.
So, the Chinese companies are obviously interested in advancing their models. But I think the Chinese companies are very willing to sit down and
discuss with the American companies whether a dual slowdown is needed, and can we do it on equal terms with mutual respect? I think I've seen some of
American executives suggest that America and its allies should come up with the rules and tell China to follow, I think, frankly, that is very arrogant
and will not be accepted well.
I think the U.S. and China are the two leaders to resolve this issue, to provide A.I. safety. The two leaders must sit down on equal terms. Just
like if phones have some danger, Android and iPhone are the two companies that have to -- two products, Apple and Google, have to sit down and
resolve it. It can't be the case that Google finds all of its partners, makes the rules and tells Apple to follow suit, and vice versa.
ISAACSON: Well, this seems very interesting, almost newsy. You're saying that you think that the Chinese are ready to sit down and figure this out.
But I couldn't tell from your answer whether you're talking about a government-to-government thing, like when President Trump meets Xi and
having a government rules of the road, arms control negotiation, or whether it should be, as you said at the beginning, Chinese companies sitting down
with American companies and doing it without government.
LEE: I think both are viable, and I think American leaders talk about both. I think some advocates a private sector self-restraint. Others
believe regulations are needed. I think this danger is potentially serious and not far from imminent, that both paths should be pursued.
I think the Chinese companies are more commercial. They are farther away from reaching this AGI. But I don't see any reason why they wouldn't
participate. I think any assumption that Chinese companies are inherently out to build something bad or refuse to participate is a very naive
demonization of Chinese companies.
And if you think about President Trump and President Xi, look at their speeches. President Xi has mentioned many, many, many more times A.I.
safety. I also think China would be a willing participant, but again, it has to be at equal levels.
ISAACSON: One of the differences between China and the United States is there's a survey that says 84 percent of the people in China are excited
about A.I., and I think only 38 percent in America are. You've lived in both places. Why that divide?
LEE: I don't know as much. I think in the U.S., there are a lot of issues that are brought into open. There are a number of vocal people who talk
about dangers of A.I., and the media, I think, sometimes correctly reports issues, but sometimes sensationalizes. That leads to, I think, the
relatively negative view.
[13:50:00]
And I think the view about A.I. taking jobs away is more prevalent in the U.S. That's why at various graduation commencements, the students didn't
want to hear the speaker talk about A.I., so that's my guess about the U.S.
Now, in China, if you think about what has brought the success to China, it's about learning to do manufacturing, learning to actually adopt mobile
phones, ahead of U.S., in wide usage, learning to use the Internet, developing China's own Internet websites, and being the first to use mobile
devices, and having a lot of conveniences, including very fast-food delivery, very good car ride services, very good e-commerce, et cetera.
So, I think the people's views are very much influenced by their own experiences. So, a typical Chinese 40-year-old would look back on the last
20 years at all the miraculous conveniences, improvements, and financial benefits from technology, so it's natural for them to feel more optimistic.
Now, as we see more issues emerge, if they emerge, obviously, that number will come down.
ISAACSON: Let me end with a personal question. You've had a battle with cancer. That raises really two questions for me. To what extent do you
think that we've been misallocating all of our CPUs and processing and IQ points and energy and buzz to things like chatbots and personal agents, as
opposed to doing big things like curing cancer?
And secondly, since it's going to disrupt what the nature of work is, what did you learn from your cancer about what gives meaning to life?
LEE: Certainly. Yes. On the first question, I do think A.I. for science, in particular A.I. for drug discovery, is an incredibly important area. I
think Demis Hassabis has won a Nobel Prize for AlphaFold, and I'm very excited to see him now dedicating his career to tracking this. My other hat
is the CEO of Sinovation Ventures. We've also made numerous investments in A.I. for drug discovery. So, I do agree there should be more renewed focus
on that.
I think we're at a very critical juncture where I think our longevity can increase, not just living longer, but longer and healthier. And A.I. is a
great way to discover drugs and also make scientific breakthroughs that can help with our health and the well-being of the world.
On the second question, while there's still some debate, but I think most people recognize A.I. will remove some jobs from the world. And what I've
been worried since 2017, when I started writing "AI Superpowers," is that when A.I. starts doing more and more cognitive tasks and number of jobs in
various categories decline, that's not only going to be an issue with people's income, but because so many of us believe that our work is the
essence and meaning of our life and why we exist.
So, I think the society has to make changes and concessions on a lot of our values. First, I think we do need to find jobs that are very numerous for
people to take. But many of them may not have huge economic value. They might be service jobs. They might be volunteer jobs. They might be
homeschooling. They might be going to foster homes and elderly homes.
These, I think, jobs create societal value. They bring warmth and connectivity to people. And that's clearly important in an age where A.I.
is making the world 2X, 3X, 10X more money. And we enter the age of plenitude when there's enough money for everyone on Earth, if they could be
distributed. But if people are unhappy because they're not feeling they're contributing to this world, that's a problem.
So, I think we need to shift from the only way to contribute is to make money and become rich. Equally respectable should be people who make the
world a better place. And there should be respect for service jobs, which might be the most numerous jobs that the most people will take. They
currently don't have the status of the lawyer, doctor, software engineers. But in the future, there will be a lot more of teachers and nurses and
volunteers and homeschooling teachers, et cetera.
So, they need to have respect and social status. And they need to be paid not for their economic contribution, but for their societal contribution.
[13:55:00]
ISAACSON: Kai-Fu Lee, thank you so much for joining us.
LEE: Thank you, Walter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And finally, a pause for thought for this California library, where one very big, big bookworm beat the morning rush, arriving before
doors could even open. As you can see here, a black bear was caught on security cameras wandering through the Mammoth Lakes Library, helping
itself to the library staff snacks from cookies to honey. With "Winnie the Pooh's" 100th anniversary just passed, perhaps the bear was looking to take
a leaf out of his book, enjoying a little light reading and, of course, a pot of honey. It's all captured there for you on video.
All right. That is it for now. If you ever miss our show, 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.
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[14:00:00]
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