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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Why Hamas Won't Accept the Ceasefire Deal; The Controversy Around Using Frozen Russian Assets; Interview With TerraPower Co- Founder Bill Gates; Interview With Khan Academy Founder And CEO Sal Khan. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired June 16, 2024 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:38]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you live from London.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program, why won't Hamas agreed to President Biden's proposed ceasefire deal that would pause or maybe end the war in Gaza. We'll dig into the many motives of the Palestinian militant group and its leadership.

Also, should Russia's frozen assets be used to aid Ukraine? It's been a big controversial question in the West, and it came to a head this week at the G7 meeting. I'll talk to the "FT's" Gillian Tett about it all.

And Bill Gates digs nuclear power. In fact, he thinks we need much more of it, and he's putting his money where his mouth is. Breaking ground this week on a new reactor in Wyoming. Gates tells me why he is so bullish on this controversial power source.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."

An American in Europe these days might find himself in a strange situation, or at least that was my experience having recently spent a week there traveling from Germany to Norway to Spain. In the United States, we talk about our economic problems. In Europe the talk is all about how Europe has been unable to keep up with the American powerhouse.

The facts are stark. In 2008, the United States and the Eurozone economies were roughly the same size. Today, the American economy is nearly twice the size of the Eurozone. And it's not just one measure. Average European income is now 27 percent lower than in the U.S. and average wages 37 percent lower.

When the British left the European Union, they fantasized about forging a close relationship with the United States, almost becoming the 51st state. Were that to happen, it is surely sobering to Britons to realize that it would be the 51st poorest state in the union where the per capita GDP below that of Mississippi.

The American economy towers above Europe's these days. America's technology companies dominate the continent. American banks are far more profitable than European ones. American energy production has created a boom in manufacturing, which is luring many European companies to the U.S.

As one German CEO said to me, America is an easier place to do business, has fewer regulations and now has much lower energy costs. How do I rationally invest in Europe? Two of Europe's largest oil companies Shell and Total Energies have mused about fleeing Europe and floating their shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

European leaders understand the problem and have proposed a series of solutions. Two former Italian prime ministers Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi have been tasked with producing reports with policy ideas to counter the slide. Letta's is out and many people who have spoken to Draghi have a sense of his proposals as well. They center on the central issue -- Europe is too divided.

Technology is a good prism through which to understand the challenge. To create powerful digital companies these days, you need three factors -- great engineering talent, easy access to capital, and a large market into which you can quickly deploy the new products, scale. America has all three as does China. Europe has some of the world's most talented engineers. It has access to capital, but it does not have a single market despite often being described as such.

Tech entrepreneurs struggle to navigate 27 different markets with different regulations, authorities, standards, and requirements. This is why, as the Letta report notes, Europe is home to 33 trillion euros of savings but every year 300 billion euros of European money is diverted to overseas markets to find superior investments, most of them in the United States.

[10:05:01]

These economic challenges are mirrored in the geopolitical arena. Europe remains a conglomeration of countries that pretend to have a unified defense and foreign policy. Defense spending is now rising, but remains too low, having gone down to a new normal since the end of the Cold War.

Germany is the best example. In the 1980s, West Germany had over 500,000 soldiers in its army on high alert to take on a Soviet invasion through the Fulda Gap. Today, a unified Germany has fewer than 200,000 troops under arms and readiness levels are not nearly as high. The British Navy that once rule the waves is now smaller than it was in the 17th Century, and while efforts are underway to boost spending two of its warships were recently decommissioned because they simply weren't enough sailors to man them.

European countries need to spend more, but they spend a considerable amount already. Alas, much of it is wasted because there is little coordination and no grand strategy that animates it. Many West European countries still spend money on territorial defense, who is going to invade Belgium, when they should focus on the capacity to move troops and equipment to defend the eastern frontiers of Europe, which is where the threat comes from.

Again, because European producers do not have continent-wide scale, much of Europe's defense spending goes to American companies.

The solution to Europe's woes can be summarized in one line. A deeper, more united, most strategic Europe. But that solution means inevitably more power to the European Union, which feeds the populist backlash that was so evident in last week's elections. A European politician explained to me the continent's dilemma. We know what to do, he said. We just don't know how to win an election after we do it.

Perhaps the best rejoinder would be to quote another European, Jean Monnet, one of the founders of the European Union. Europe will be forged in crisis and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.

Go to CNN.com/Fareed for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week. And let's get started.

After more than eight months of brutal war a new ceasefire seemed possible this week. A plan backed by President Biden was approved by the U.N. Security Council on Monday. Prime Minister Netanyahu himself hasn't publicly supported the plan, but top American officials suggest it is Hamas that is keeping the plan from moving forward. The militant group has proposed changes to the deal. Secretary of State Blinken said some of the changes are workable, some are not.

Meanwhile, reporting by the "Wall Street Journal" earlier this week quoted Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as saying that Palestinian suffering amounts to necessary sacrifices. Hamas has dismissed these reports labeling them as fake.

To deconstruct the motivations of Hamas and much else, I'm joined by the director of Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, Sanam Vakil.

Pleasure, Sanam. So, put yourself in Yahya Sinwar's shoes and, you know, I know you teach a course on real leadership. Imagine you're him for a moment. When he looks at this landscape and this peace deal, or this ceasefire deal, what is he seeing?

SANAM VAKIL, DIRECTOR OF MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA PROGRAMME, CHATHAM HOUSE: Well, I think it's very important to think of leaders and their calculations, and too often we don't. Yahya Sinwar is oftentimes seen to be miscalculating because he's not putting the lives of Palestinians at the forefront and pushing for this ceasefire. Instead, what Sinwar is doing, he has three objectives. His personal survival, the survival of Hamas, as well as elevating the issue of Palestine back on the international stage.

He has succeeded in elevating the issue of Palestine for now. What he has also succeeded is keeping Hamas somewhat intact, right? And he continues to survive. But to guarantee those three goals to move forward, he also needs a permanent ceasefire, and that's what he's pushing for in terms of the changes with the Biden administration's deal.

ZAKARIA: So when you say he's succeeded, you're right, and people are talking about the Palestinian state, though, of course, not in Israel, which is the country that would have to grant it, but it has elevated the cause. He's personally safe.

How badly has Hamas been destroyed from best you can tell?

VAKIL: Well, certainly they have been degraded.

[10:10:01]

Israel continues to press. In terms of military capabilities they are weakened. And there are tens of thousands of Hamas militants that have been killed. But Hamas is operating underground and clearly Sinwar is living underground and it's unlikely that he'll ever have public, you know, outward-facing leadership again. But Hamas is an idea that is going to be very difficult to eradicate.

Hamas continues to live on as a fighting force against Israel. And I think that for now the fact that they are still there, still fighting and still living on as the idea, means that Israel's objectives are unachievable.

ZAKARIA: In a sense, if they survive, they have won, right, which is what you're saying. What about Hezbollah? Did Sinwar miscalculate in expecting that Hezbollah would join in the battle frontally? They have provided some support by shelling the north, by lobbing missiles. But was there -- do you think Sinwar expected more from Hezbollah?

VAKIL: To be honest, it's really early to say, too early actually to anticipate what the nature of the planning of October 7th was. I think that of course we assume that Hezbollah would pile in and support Hamas. But the nature and calculations of the axis of resistance that includes Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, et cetera, is evolving,

Hezbollah has, as you mentioned, provided that support, that distraction. It's also invested in keeping Hamas alive but all of these groups are also self-preservational. They have a domestic mandate. They have a domestic constituency that they're trying to answer to, and it would be a mistake for Hezbollah to gamble on its own survivability for Hamas or for the broader axis.

ZAKARIA: So they are -- so Hezbollah's number one issue is make sure Hezbollah is fine. Same for the Houthis. What about the peace deal that -- so what Sinwar wants is a permanent end to the hostilities so that he can stand up and say, you know, we survived, we're still around. How likely is that to happen?

VAKIL: I don't think it's likely to happen in the immediate future. He is more vested in keeping himself alive and keeping Hamas alive. And he very much can read the Israeli landscape quite well, knowing full well that the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu also doesn't have an interest in immediately signing on to a permanent peace deal because Netanyahu's objectives are the eradication of Hamas. So both sides haven't yet hit that stalemate, that mutually hurting

stalemate that is often described in conflict, to get to that deal. So there is a mutual interest actually in continuing this war for now, and these timelines are not aligned with that of the Biden administration that needs that peace deal right now.

ZAKARIA: So you're saying this is going to go on. Your prediction is this is going to continue and what Hamas is going to keep trying to do is to show that it hasn't died by sporadic violence, popping up in the north, and things like that. Can Israel do anything to really eradicate Hamas?

VAKIL: I think it's going to be a long-term military exercise, but it has to move beyond the military engagement as Hamas is not just a military power but an idea of resistance. I think that the Israeli landscape has to start embracing alternative mechanisms to deal with the issue of Palestine that they have pushed aside for two decades.

A one-state solution and putting people behind walls and gates hasn't worked for Israel. It hasn't given Israel security. So perhaps it's time for Israel and its leadership to engage with an idea of sovereignty, statehood, self-determination for Palestinians and give them the dignity that Palestinians deserve.

ZAKARIA: Pleasure to have you on. Thank you.

VAKIL: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Thank you.

Next on GPS, ever since Russia invaded Ukraine and the West seized hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of Russian Central Bank assets, the question has been, should the West take those funds? An answer emerged this week. We'll hear about it when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:18:42]

ZAKARIA: Western nations currently hold some $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets. Ever since the funds were confiscated after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there's been much debate about whether to use the money and if so how. The Biden administration has wanted every last ruble to support Kyiv, but many in Europe are more cautious. Finally, this week G7 leaders came to a compromise. They agreed to issue a $50 billion loan to Ukraine that would be repaid by the income off these assets.

Joining me to talk about all this is Gillian Tett. She's a columnist and editorial board member of "The Financial Times." She's also the provost of King's College Cambridge.

Gillian, pleasure to have you on. And the first simple question I think I was wondering is, look, why not just -- we've confiscated the assets, why not just take them and spend them on rebuilding Ukraine? GILLIAN TETT, COLUMNIST AND EDITORIAL BOARD CHAIR, FINANCIAL TIMES:

Yes. I know this looked pretty complicated like a lot of financial instruments and derivatives that are out there in the financial system. But the reason why they haven't just grabbed the assets is twofold. Firstly, many Europeans don't want to set a precedent that if a country leaves their assets inside Europe and there's a big geopolitical row, those assets are seized because they fear that if that precedent is set then other countries won't ever use Europe again as a place to store their financial assets.

[10:20:01]

But secondly, the problem with seizing the assets is that would be permanent. It can't be reversed if, say, there's a change of government in Moscow in the future.

ZAKARIA: Or if there's a peace deal.

TETT: Yes. Or if there's a peace deal. And the key point is that, although America is driving this desire to give the assets to Ukraine, most of the assets, 200 out of the 260 billion euro assets, are actually sitting in Europe and that makes the discussion very, very complicated.

ZAKARIA: And so in Europe, in effect, this is one of the kind of businesses, a place countries like Belgium where they act as clearing houses for all this money and the fear is that the Indians will pull their money out, all those other people. What is the American answer to that?

TETT: Well, absolutely. I mean, remember Europe is fighting to maintain itself as a financial center in the world and not have all the business go to New York or Singapore, or Dubai in the future. And so what they've essentially done is a very clever compromise where they've said we're not going to seize all the assets permanently. We're going to use the interest on the assets and back alone with that interest.

So that means that there will be money going to Ukraine not until the end of the year, but there will be money go to Ukraine. But it also means that if the situation changes again in the future, then essentially those assets are still sitting there frozen and they can be given back to Russia in the future if there is indeed a peace deal or a change of government. So they're trying to thread the needle and if you like, have it both ways with optionality, but also the money flowing to Ukraine.

Obviously, Ukraine would prefer to have the $300 billion rather than just the $50 billion loan. Obviously, that will be a lot cleaner. But this is an attempt to, as so often in international politics and finance, create a compromise that keeps almost everyone happy. And the key thing to ask about this whole deal is if somebody breaks rules like invade another country illegally, does that justify breaking more rules to punish them or not?

ZAKARIA: Yes. TETT: And that's really the problem right now.

ZAKARIA: Do you -- you know, in order to uphold the rules-based international system, do you every now and then have to break some of those rules? I mean, when Larry Summers and Bob Zoellick say, look, we are setting a precedent, and the precedent is your assets are safe, except if you engage in naked aggression.

TETT: Absolutely. And of course, a backdrop to all this is a concern in Europe that -- and of course Ukraine, that if Donald Trump wins the election in November in the U.S., then suddenly there'll be not only less aid for Ukraine or if no aid for Ukraine, but also, you'll have a president in place who doesn't believe in rules in general it seems and international order.

So they're trying to lay down if you like a path for supporting Ukraine that can't be easily reversed but they hope would actually keep the economy going. And the other thing to bear in mind is that the history of wars show that in many, many cases, when a country falls into war, it ends up having hyperinflation and a collapse in the economy because it runs out of money. So the west is frankly trying to avoid Ukraine tumbling into hyperinflation. And so many war struck countries have in the past.

ZAKARIA: Why has that not happened to Russia? What are your thoughts on how Russia has survived the sanctions and why?

TETT: Well, up until now, Russia has survived relatively well, although it's worth saying that ironically inflation in Ukraine right now is around 3 percent or 4 percent. In Russia, inflation is around 20 percent. And in many ways, the Russian economy is showing a lot of stress and strain.

The reasons why its survived so far is that firstly, the Kremlin has reorientated the economy towards industrial production and in particular, war production. And that's given quite a boost. And it has enough control of the economy that really can redirect assets when it gets itself organized.

The other reason of course is the oil price has not collapsed. And so Russia is still getting revenues from the oil price in spite of Western sanctions. But the other big, highly controversial reason is China. China is providing all kinds of support to the Russian economy at the moment in a way that many Russians feel quite uneasy about because they don't like being dependent on China. Many Americans and Europeans are furious about.

But as long as that flow and that support happens, it's going to be tough for the allies to crush the Russian economy as they had hoped, although what I would stress is if you look into the weeds of the data coming out of Russia right now insofar as they're accurate, it does indicate that the Russian economy is facing growing stress and those stresses will almost certainly get worse and worse as the year rolls on.

ZAKARIA: Bottom line, you think that this deal worked out at the G7 is a good compromise, it allows the Europeans to feel that their businesses, their long-term business is protected, allows Ukraine to get some money?

TETT: Absolutely. I think it probably is the least bad deal. And right now, we are in the world of not so much good deals, but least bad deals. Ukraine definitely need support. It ideally need support that it's really protected from a change of government in Washington that might potentially occur later this year.

[10:25:06]

But at the same time, I do understand why people are saying that simply seizing these assets right now in a permanent way would be risky. And the other point to bear in mind is that at all costs European leaders and America have to stay together united right now because if they are split apart by fighting about this kind of deal or anything else it will be so much easier for Vladimir Putin to triumph or to at least look as if he's triumphing and so much worse for Ukraine.

ZAKARIA: Gillian Tett, as always, so enlightening.

Next on GPS, Bill Gates, who's shoveling dirt in Wyoming. I'll tell you why when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:08]

ZAKARIA: In his 2021 book, "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster," Bill Gates wrote that in order to solve the climate crisis we need to make clean energy economically competitive with fossil fuels. This week, he broke ground on a new facility in Wyoming that he says will do just that. It is a nuclear power plant with a reactor that is about one- third the size of a traditional reactor. And it's cooled by liquid sodium instead of water.

Gates says that makes it safer and simpler to build out. It's the latest initiative from his company, TerraPower. The project faces hurdles. Most prominently the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hasn't yet approved the plan for the reactor. In the past, nuclear projects have been plagued by delays and high costs. But proponents of these new reactors say that they are the key to a future with an abundance of clean energy. I spoke to Gates this week about the initiative and the future of nuclear power.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Bill Gates, pleasure to have you on the show.

BILL GATES, CO-FOUNDER, TERRAPOWER: Great to talk to you.

ZAKARIA: When I talk to people about nuclear, they say the biggest problem with nuclear is not all the things people worry about radioactive waste, and it's just it's so expensive. The capital expenditures are so massive. Have you come up with something genuinely -- you know, why is this -- this kind of nuclear plant going to be so much cheaper?

GATES: Yes, we've been willing to go back to the basics and do what people have always said should be done, which is to cool the plant with metal instead of water. And that means that this problem of high pressure and extra heat when you shut down is completely solved. And so, the complexity that's meant that nuclear has gotten more complex and more expensive as it has gone from first to third generation, we changed that utterly.

ZAKARIA: There's a Russia angle here too, right, which is the fuel that you need is -- mostly comes out of Russia. Is that a limitation? How do you think about that?

GATES: Yes. So, we've had to change the original plan, which would have gotten done in 2028, was dependent on fuel fabrication in Russia. That's, of course, unacceptable now. And so, all the fuel for these plants will come either from the United States or friendly countries.

ZAKARIA: What about the politics and psychology of this, Bill, which is, you know, whatever you may say about the facts, the reality is that post Fukushima in Japan there's huge concern. In Germany they shut down their nuclear plants.

What do you say to people to give them assurance, particularly with regard to this nuclear power plant, TerraPower?

GATES: Yes. The inherent safety features in here are pretty amazing. You know, even though nuclear actually has a pretty good track record, despite the problems, this is in a different regime. It doesn't require operators to do the right things. It just inherently the heat fully gets absorbed with no release.

So, you know, the -- there's a lot of countries like France, the U.K., Japan, South Korea, who are very accepting of nuclear. In fact, they know they need nuclear. Japan is not as lucky as the U.S. in terms of land for solar wind. And so, to go green, you know, it has got to be even higher percentage to nuclear in that case.

And so, working with those countries will show that we can get the cost down. And then I think even countries like Germany will look at this next generation and reconsider.

ZAKARIA: But you once said that if you had one wish -- you know, if you had a magic wand and you had one wish, it would be to find a source of energy that was cheaper than coal and had zero emissions. So, I think, your nuclear plant is going to have close to zero emissions, but it isn't going be cheaper than coal, right?

GATES: Well, the -- you know, coal -- particularly if you looked at the health costs of the emissions, you know, coal is being outcompeted by natural gas. And so, what we have to do is compete effectively with natural gas. So, once we get to like our 10th unit and we have our component costs down we shouldn't expect people to buy electricity, to pay higher prices.

You know, the risks should be these private investors and the U.S. government. And, you know, we believe we can meet that very aggressive cost target. And that's, you know, why we have the company and why we think it can -- not just in the U.S. but globally contribute to the climate challenge.

[10:35:01]

ZAKARIA: You've invested in this for a long time. If this happens in the next five years, will you actually make money on it or is this -- is this -- you know, this is a write-off because you think this is important for the planet?

GATES: Well, amazingly, you know, when a company succeeds in innovating then, you know, it can be profitable. All these climate investments I've made if we do succeed overall that money goes to the Gates Foundation. So, it allows us to do more on things like malaria and tuberculosis.

ZAKARIA: Bill Gates, always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.

GATES: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, from innovations in energy to innovations in education. I'll take a look at how A.I. could transform how children learn when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:33]

ZAKARIA: A.I. has the potential to transform the world we live in, from warfare, to banking, to health care. And according to my next guest, education as well.

Sal Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, an education platform that was teaching students online long before COVID forced kids from classrooms in 2020. His new book, "Brave New Words," looks at how A.I. will revolutionize education, enhancing the way teachers teach, and children learn. Sal, welcome.

SAL KHAN, FOUNDER AND CEO, KHAN ACADEMY: Thanks for having me.

ZAKARIA: So, you have an amazing story here about the OpenAI guys, Sam Altman and company, coming to you before we knew about ChatGPT and all that. Why did they come to you?

KHAN: It was summer of 2022 and I got this cryptic email from Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Greg is the president OpenAI saying, hey, we have our next model that we're training, but we'd love to meet and show it to you to see if it's useful for you.

And I was skeptical and they said, look, the reason we want to meet you is we want to lead with social positive use cases with organizations that folks trust. So, they thought of Khan Academy. And yes, that first demo, they showed an AP biology question. And they said, Sal, what's the answer? I'm like, I think, osmosis. OK, C. And said, C. I'm like, maybe it got lucky. I said, ask it to explain the answer. And it did. Ask it to explain what the wrong answer is. It did. Create more questions.

And now people are used to this. We've all used ChatGPT, but you can imagine the summer of 2020 I started to, OK, is this for real? And then they gave access that weekend and I couldn't sleep that weekend.

ZAKARIA: Everyone at some level, thinks it's going to transform everything but -- I mean, how do you think about what is going -- what is the transformation going to look like if you were to characterize in a way that will help people make sense of it?

KHAN: I know it sounds hyperbolic, but it will transform everything. And I think it's very easy for people to imagine the negative transformations, and they will happen. But I point out -- I pointed out in the book like all technology it amplifies human intent.

And so, it's all about, can we -- can we amplify some positive intent? And that's where education -- you know, you should never put the technology in front of the use case. At Khan Academy, we setup as a not-for-profit many years ago. As you know, it started with me tutoring family, and everything we've done since then has been to scale up that type of personalization that that I was originally able to do with my cousin Nadia.

We used to do that with videos. We did that with exercises, with teacher tools. But now we can use A.I. to get that much closer to emulating it.

But in very simple terms, it can get that much closer to a real tutor for every student, and a teaching assistant, not a teacher. I think the teachers are going to be more important than ever in an A.I. world.

ZAKARIA: Why do you need the teacher if the A.I. is able to answer the question, to tell you why it's the right answer, interact with the student who says, but I don't understand this part? And the A.I. can do that better than the human teacher because the A.I. has all the knowledge in the world, et cetera. You know, are you just being politically correct by saying, oh yes, well, there will always be room for the teacher?

KHAN: I don't think I am. I mean, I genuinely and I thought about this from my own family, if I had to pick between amazing teacher and no technology, or amazing technology and no teacher, I'd pick the amazing teacher and no technology. Then the question is, why?

And even when Khan Academy, pre A.I. Khan Academy, first came on scene people used to say, oh, you've made some videos. Won't this replace the lecturer? And I was like, it actually will replace -- if someone is -- all they're doing is giving a lecture, then yes, I do think on- demand video will replace that. But in an ideal world, it liberates that person who used to have to use that class time for lecture and now do more interactive things, mentor students, do more focused interactions. And now with artificial intelligence that extends that. I tell every teacher, if you could get teaching assistants that can do all of this work now you can spend more human-to-human time with students.

ZAKARIA: How do you deal with the problem that everybody I know in education is worrying about, which is will students actually do the work if the A.I. can do the work for them? How do you devise tests in a world in which the students can just have the A.I. do the -- you know, write the paper, do the answers, whatever?

KHAN: So, the book -- there's a whole chapter on cheating and I always like to start first principles. Like what was going on even before ChatGPT? It turns out there was a lot of cheating. And to some degree, ChatGPT just puts a spotlight on a problem that already existed.

But I also think the underlying technology, maybe not ChatGPT, can be part of the solution. What we are building with Khanmigo is the student can work with the A.I., but A.I. reports everything to the teacher. So, it's not going to do it for the student. It can support the student better.

[10:45:02]

But then when it -- when it submits it to the teacher, the teacher doesn't just get the final output, which is when we were growing up that's all the teacher got. But now the teacher can get the entire process.

ZAKARIA: You sound altogether kind of too optimistic about this. What -- are you -- are you really not as worried about the downsides?

KHAN: Oh, I'm very worried about the downsides. You know, part of why I try to focus on the glass half full is -- including my -- it's very easy to imagine the negatives. I am very worried. There's already examples of people -- a phone call from someone that sounds like your grandson saying that they're in jail. This is only going to happen more and more.

You're already seeing bullying in schools where people are creating deepfakes of their classmates doing horrible things. This is -- there was a recent school system where someone fabricated a racist comment by a school leader and that person almost lost their job.

So, this is -- this is going to accelerate. So, we need ways -- and state actors are going to use it to -- you can imagine creating people -- people creating videos of runs on banks that create financial situations.

So, there's a lot to worry about. But I hope that by reading this book people realize -- once again, it's not a flip of a coin, whether A.I. is a net positive or net negative. The bad actors are going to do the bad stuff. Hopefully, we can police them and protect from them. But the good actors need to lean into this. And if more positive human intent, positive human resources go behind it, there's a lot of good that can happen.

ZAKARIA: Sal Khan, always a pleasure to talk to you.

KHAN: Thanks for having me.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has a controversial plan to send asylum seekers all the way to Rwanda, some 4,000 miles away from Britain. Is that smart? Is it ethical? I'll explore when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:51:29]

ZAKARIA: Now, for the last look. As in 2016, immigration is shaping up to be a central issue in this year's U.S. presidential election. Trump is promising mass deportation, and Biden is trying to use executive action to get the border under control.

Across the Atlantic, another election is playing out with immigration at its heart. British voters will go to the polls on July 4th, and each party is putting its immigration plan front-and-center. Like much of the industrialized world, Britain is struggling with an influx of migrants seeking asylum.

The Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, has a controversial answer to this problem. It wants to send many asylum seekers to a third-party location, the east African nation of Rwanda, some 4,000 miles away. They would have the opportunity to settle in Rwanda, not Britain. Though, Britain would provide funds to help people build a new life there. Rwanda itself would benefit financially and reputationally.

But the flights may never happen because the Labour Party is totally opposed to the plan and is polling well ahead of the Conservatives. Sunak says the choice of this election is clear because only his plan will deter people from coming who want genuinely in search of asylum. The idea is that many, many people who show up seeking asylum are really economic migrants trying to cut the long line for normal immigration.

Actual refugees under international law are people fleeing persecution due to their identity or opinions. They are entitled to live in a place where they will not be threatened on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

Rwanda, a poor country, wouldn't be high on the list for people fleeing poverty but most people persecuted in their home country would not face the same threats in Rwanda. There's no reason to think that an ethnic group targeted by the Taliban, or a religious minority targeted in India would be at risk in Rwanda. It's worth noting that Rwanda has come a long way since the genocide. It is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and boasts a murder rate lower than that of the United States. Its leader does have autocratic tendencies stamping out decentered, targeting political opponents, but it is a stable country and most types of asylum seekers should be safe there.

Still, critics say Rwanda is unsafe and that Britain is becoming a rogue state for sending these vulnerable people there. Britain's Supreme Court struck down an earlier version of the plan saying Rwanda lacked adequate safeguards required by international asylum law. Sunak retooled the plan and signed a treaty with Rwanda to ensure more protections but legal challenges remain.

The Labour Party's objections are mostly about the costs. Keir Starmer calls the policy a gimmick that wouldn't work but would cost a fortune. Indeed, Britain would spend about $600 million for the first 300 migrants that will go to Rwanda, about $2 million per person. But a lot of that reflects high up-front costs and future relocations would be much cheaper.

Also, the U.K. currently spends almost $4 billion a year on hotels for tens of thousands of asylum seekers. So, if the policy dissuaded large numbers of migrants from coming some of the costs would be offset.

[10:55:03]

Labour's plan, on the other hand, is to invest in law enforcement efforts against human traffickers. It also wants to hire more agents to speed processing of asylum claims and quickly deport people who are denied.

Whether the Rwanda plan ever happens, the idea has caught the world's attention. Outside advisers to Trump are reportedly considering how the U.S. could replicate the scheme in some way. As mass asylum applications continue to overwhelm the industrialized world countries are going to keep looking for unusual controversial ways to stem the flows.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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