WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:05.320 Nobody likes graffiti, or no business owner likes graffiti. I don't like graffiti. 2 00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:12.599 And the one city service in the City of Fresno that I interact with 3 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:18.280 the most and thereby appreciate the most. And there's nothing against Fresno PD, 4 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:24.440 I just haven't really had occasion to have all that much interaction with them. 5 00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:30.600 My favorite city service, as someone who runs a nonprofit organization to a non 6 00:00:30.679 --> 00:00:36.039 profit organization in the city of Fresno, my favorite city service is the graffiti 7 00:00:36.079 --> 00:00:42.079 removal service. The City of Fresno's graffiti removal service is very quick. They 8 00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:46.000 do a pretty good job. My building, the building that we own for 9 00:00:46.079 --> 00:00:49.600 Right to Life of Central California, is not in the best part of town. 10 00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:54.520 It gets tagged all the time, and so and all the time, 11 00:00:54.759 --> 00:00:58.679 I should say, probably about you know, about four or five times a 12 00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:03.280 year, someone will come by and spray graffiti either on our building or on 13 00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:11.519 the garbage dump, on our neighbors building, the garbage dump faces our parking 14 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:15.879 lot, or right in our next door neighbors building, et cetera. People 15 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:21.079 are constantly tagging this stuff with graffiti. And so what I do is I 16 00:01:21.159 --> 00:01:27.040 see it and I call the City of Fresno, and I tell them, 17 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:32.359 hey, I'm at this address. You can access it from the street. 18 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:34.840 It's right on the side of the building. Blah blah blah. And within 19 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:41.040 usually within a day or so, someone from the city and I've seen their 20 00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:45.159 truck. It's like a nice, big, old pickup truck with a whole 21 00:01:45.200 --> 00:01:49.840 bunch of equipment and stuff in the back. They drive by and they cover 22 00:01:49.879 --> 00:01:52.000 it up. They try to match the pain as best they can, and 23 00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:55.959 they cover up the graffiti and it's free. So it's a really nice service 24 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:02.280 and something I like. There's this push now and clearly it was some kind 25 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:07.359 of press conference or something yesterday. City of Fresno is having some kind of 26 00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:19.000 push to reduce and eliminate graffiti. So they have this big press conference and 27 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:22.879 they've got sort of this multi pronged effort. It looks like it looks like 28 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:28.599 the police department is going to have more focus on it. The City Attorney's 29 00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:37.360 office under Andrew Jan's erstwhile candidate for Congress and then candidate for the mayor's office, 30 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:43.759 he's trying to make a splash with how he's approaching it. His office 31 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:49.840 will handle the day to day cases to impose punishments. Lisa Smith Camp's office, 32 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:53.520 the DA is she's looking at it. They're mentioning that if people do 33 00:02:53.599 --> 00:02:59.599 more than four hundred dollars worth of damage, that that results in a felony 34 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:05.599 charge, and that the DA's office is going to bring felony charges unless people 35 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:14.080 provide full restitution. So there's all this, and it just highlights to me 36 00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:20.520 sometimes how bad the media is at their job for how they report on this, 37 00:03:20.599 --> 00:03:29.560 because there's no the follow up question. So I scroll through this story. 38 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:36.560 The graffiti Removal task Force are the guys who actually do the graffiti abatement. 39 00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:42.719 As I say, it's like a truck with some equipment in the back, 40 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:46.280 various kinds of paints. I'm sure they've got various kinds of chemicals, 41 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:52.719 solvents, whatever to remove paint. I'm sure the kinds of stuff you got 42 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:54.759 to use. If someone spray paints on glass, that's got to be something 43 00:03:54.800 --> 00:04:00.319 different rather than well, we're just going to cover up paint. You know 44 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:03.639 that's on a painted wall already. Just get some paint that matches the wall. 45 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:10.879 So it's like two guys with a truck. That's the task force. 46 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:15.199 And I'm not sure if they've got multiple such trucks, multiple such teams. 47 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:18.040 But I've seen these guys at work, and I kind of know what it 48 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:21.920 is. It's a truck with a bunch of equipment, some chemicals and stuff 49 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:28.879 in the back, and two guys. So let's say maybe they have three 50 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:32.199 such guys. I'd have to imagine they're probably not. You know, let's 51 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:44.439 imagine they have three such trucks. Now, this article, this article from 52 00:04:44.439 --> 00:04:47.920 AYBEC thirty, and I'm only talking about ABC thirty just to slam them, 53 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:56.720 so just shows how bad either how and this must show either how bad the 54 00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:01.439 media is at reporting on this or how un believably wasteful our city government spending 55 00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:09.920 is. It's one or the other. While city leaders explained how the various 56 00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:13.920 departments would work together, the graffiti behind them slowly disappeared as members of the 57 00:05:13.959 --> 00:05:15.839 President Graffiti Team painted over the tags. Oh okay, so they gave a 58 00:05:15.839 --> 00:05:20.720 demonstration of how the Graffiti Task Force does their work. Very good. The 59 00:05:20.759 --> 00:05:26.920 city estimates this is the thing that I was like there, either this is 60 00:05:27.079 --> 00:05:33.240 obviously false or our whole approach to this is complete nonsense. The city estimates 61 00:05:33.279 --> 00:05:45.680 that it costs thirty thousand dollars every time the team is called up is called 62 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:54.680 out to clean up spray paint, and about two million dollars per year. 63 00:05:57.879 --> 00:06:02.600 Let me read that again. The city estimates that it costs thirty thousand dollars 64 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:08.480 every time the team is called out to clean up spray paint, and about 65 00:06:08.519 --> 00:06:18.079 two million dollars per year. ABC thirty just prints that without wait a minute, 66 00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:29.879 it costs thirty thousand dollars every time the graffiti abatement people go to a 67 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:34.680 business and clean up graffiti, and two million dollars a year. This is 68 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:39.360 a two million dollar line item in the budget for the City of Fresno. 69 00:06:42.680 --> 00:06:46.439 I mean, let's do the math. Why would they say thirty thousand dollars 70 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:53.879 a year and two million dollars thirty thousand dollars each time and two million dollars 71 00:06:53.920 --> 00:06:59.000 per year. Okay, so let's do the math. If it's two million 72 00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:04.800 dollars per year, I guess that would mean that that's the amount of money 73 00:07:04.839 --> 00:07:11.399 the city spends on it, two million dollars per year. Why would it 74 00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:17.319 cost Why would they say two million dollars per year? And they're talking about 75 00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:24.360 this is a cost for whenever the team comes out to fix it. So 76 00:07:24.519 --> 00:07:28.560 not the damage, This is not the damage to the business. This is 77 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:32.839 the cost to the city. Seemingly okay. So if the line item in 78 00:07:32.839 --> 00:07:39.920 the city budget for graffitia batement is two million dollars, which I'm will jump 79 00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:45.680 into that, that seems high. Two million dollars divided by thirty thousand, 80 00:07:45.879 --> 00:07:48.759 okay, because they say it costs thirty thousand every time they go out and 81 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:56.040 it's a two million dollar budget. Well, two million dollars divided by thirty 82 00:07:56.079 --> 00:08:05.120 thousand is sixty six point sixty six visits. So you're telling me that the 83 00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:11.319 graffiti abatement people abate graffiti only sixty seven times. That doesn't make any sense. 84 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.759 I mean, they've they come to right to life. They come to 85 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:20.319 right to life of Central California's building four times a year alone. There's no 86 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:31.519 way they only abate sixty six buildings. So what are we spending per And 87 00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:37.120 again that's why I was talking about. And by the way, this is 88 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:41.360 the you know this. I'm bringing this up because the city's bringing this up 89 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:46.080 here. We have this big press conference and the cities do all these initiatives 90 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:50.559 to get rid of graffiti, including some that are really dopey from Andrew Jans 91 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:54.279 that I'll talk about in the second segment, all these measures to abate graffiti. 92 00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:58.440 Yes, it's important that we abate graffiti. Jerry Dyer's out there saying, 93 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:01.159 well, you want to be graffiti free city. It's like, all 94 00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:05.879 right, well maybe that's kind of ambitious, buddy. Maybe a less graffiti 95 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:11.159 city maybe to start with, because there's a whole stinking lot of graffiti around 96 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:18.039 town, and graffiti pops up newly like all the time. I guess I 97 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:26.360 admire the tenacity in certain places of abating graffiti when it comes up. I 98 00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:31.559 I you know, pretty much every day I would drive along Shaw Avenue and 99 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:37.879 there was this new AT and T store that was being built on Shaw Avenue 100 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:43.480 where basically, as this building was being built, it had sort of the 101 00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:46.200 back wall of it was against the corner of this one intersection on Shaw, 102 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:52.080 and people the whole period of construction, people were tagging it and tagging it 103 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.919 and tagging it, and the graffiti would get covered and he would get covered 104 00:09:54.919 --> 00:09:58.519 and it'd get covered, and it was like this constant tug of war between 105 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:05.440 the I guess At and T or whoever owns the building and the graffiti, 106 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:09.279 the graffitiers, but it was constantly, constantly, constantly getting tagged. All 107 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:13.919 kinds of new construction that I see where people are trying to build a building, 108 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:22.919 I'm sure is getting hampered by people graffitiing the building as it's being constructed. 109 00:10:22.879 --> 00:10:28.720 There's a new kind of like sort of convenience store, quickie mart near 110 00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:33.159 a gas station that's being built along Ashland. The brand new building, you 111 00:10:33.159 --> 00:10:39.080 know, brand new windows being put in place immediately getting graffiti. So it 112 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:43.200 is a problem. And what Dyer is pointing out is that, hey, 113 00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:46.159 we have a lot of people, businesses that are looking to invest more in 114 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:50.000 Fresno. We want to have a good foot forward. We want to get 115 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:54.000 rid of graffiti. So he's making it a bigger priority. The police are 116 00:10:54.039 --> 00:10:58.679 making a bigger priority, The city attorney's making a bigger priority, the county 117 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:03.879 district attorney. He's making it a bigger priority. That's all well and good, 118 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:09.159 but what do we actually spend on it? How much is the Graffiti 119 00:11:09.159 --> 00:11:11.519 Task Force in use? Is the point of this to get them out there 120 00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:16.279 more? No questioning, seemingly from ABC thirty about the numbers that are being 121 00:11:16.279 --> 00:11:22.240 presented, which make absolutely no sense. How can it possibly cost thirty thousand 122 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:30.159 dollars for the city every time the abatement team comes out. The abatement team 123 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:33.039 is two guys with a truck. If that so, if you've got two 124 00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:39.360 guys working for the city, you know, city municipal works of some sort, 125 00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:41.320 I guess who are probably making Let's say, I don't know, fifty 126 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:46.840 grand a year. Let's say he's sixty grand, seventy grand a year with 127 00:11:46.919 --> 00:11:52.360 benefits you've got, So let's say that's one hundred and forty thousand dollars. 128 00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:56.960 The truck costs fifty dollars, one hundred ninety thousand dollars. Maybe all the 129 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:01.120 chemicals and stuff cost another forty thousand dollar, So two hundred thirty thousand dollars 130 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:09.639 per year for that truck. I mean, if they abate eight properties, 131 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:16.080 that's thirty thousand, eight properties in a year at thirty thousand dollars per pop, 132 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:18.879 that that would cover their whole cost. They're they're abating way more than 133 00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:24.159 eight. They're doing way more than eight graffiti abatement, you know, per 134 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:31.879 year. But no, there's no there's no real follow up, there's no 135 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:39.440 questioning. It's just yeah, like and and no question of like do we 136 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:45.600 need to spend two million on graffiti abatement? I mean, even if you 137 00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:52.080 had three such trucks with two guys per truck and that's all they did, 138 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:58.360 that's not even quite getting you to a million dollars the city spending two million 139 00:12:58.399 --> 00:13:05.759 on graffiti abatement. Now, I don't know. Maybe are you counting all 140 00:13:05.799 --> 00:13:09.639 the whatever police reports come from graffiti stuff? Are you counting that in it? 141 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:15.240 No, it's just counting the graffiti abatement team. This is the kind 142 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:20.840 of lazy stuff that happens with local reporting all the time. Like there's obviously 143 00:13:20.919 --> 00:13:24.879 context here that's completely missed. Nobody thinks to catch it though, because it's 144 00:13:24.919 --> 00:13:31.519 just on to the next thing. Reporters know a little bit about a lot 145 00:13:31.559 --> 00:13:39.279 of things that they have this surface level, this shallow surface level understanding of 146 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:43.919 a lot of things, which leads to the phenomenon which I always remember my 147 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:48.559 grandpa telling me this. Listen him saying basically, anytime he read a news 148 00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:54.360 report about something that he himself had personal knowledge of, that he could always 149 00:13:54.440 --> 00:14:00.000 identify at least four errors, four big whoppers of something that the article got 150 00:14:00.120 --> 00:14:05.840 wrong. And I feel like this is the case. I sort of feel 151 00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:13.559 like I sort of feel like the city of Fresno really lacks for great local 152 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:18.639 investigative journalism. If I had more time, maybe I could do it. 153 00:14:18.679 --> 00:14:24.120 I don't know. I've already got two jobs. Maybe I should have kind 154 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:26.600 of two three jobs. I don't know. I've got right to life, 155 00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:28.519 I've got my clinic, I've got this show. You know, if maybe 156 00:14:28.559 --> 00:14:31.840 if I had a little more time on my hands, maybe I could do 157 00:14:31.879 --> 00:14:37.320 it. But real investigative journalism, whether it's from a columnist, whether and 158 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:43.159 I think this is the kind of thing where the lack of you know, 159 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:46.600 look, I guess I don't cry too many big alligator tiers for you know, 160 00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:50.360 the demise of local newspapers. You know, I mean when you look 161 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:56.240 at, for example, ad revenue that local newspapers bring in now versus you 162 00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:01.360 know, thirty years ago. Thirty years ago, newspapers were raking in Basically, 163 00:15:01.399 --> 00:15:07.440 today newspapers bring in about one tenth of the amount of advertising revenue that 164 00:15:07.480 --> 00:15:11.600 they did, you know, thirty years ago. Nationwide, So newspapers are 165 00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:15.720 becoming so irrelevant as more and more people get their news from you know, 166 00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:20.840 national websites. More important, people get their news from watching Fox News or 167 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:26.200 CNN, and there's a real dearth of local reporters and local reporting. But 168 00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:31.799 this is the kind of thing where you feel the pinch when we return Andrew 169 00:15:31.879 --> 00:15:37.320 Jans's Kakamemi idea for how to punish graffiti. ER's next on the John Girlready 170 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:43.480 Show. City of Fresno is making a big old deal about there. There's 171 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:50.360 gonna be this big concentrated push to abate graffiti, to stop prevent graffiti on 172 00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:56.240 businesses, on buildings throughout the city of Fresno. Sounds good, noble goal. 173 00:15:56.559 --> 00:16:02.000 Nothing against it. A big press conference yesterday. You've got the mayor, 174 00:16:02.039 --> 00:16:03.320 You've got the police chief, You've got the DA, you've got the 175 00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:07.279 city attorney, all of them with all their different ideas for how the City 176 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:08.679 of Fresno is going to do more and more to a bate graffiti. They 177 00:16:08.759 --> 00:16:17.559 highlight the City of Fresno Graffiti Abatement Team. They give these eye poppingly preposterous 178 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:22.240 numbers that it costs two million dollars for the city to abate graffiti per year, 179 00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:23.159 which I tried to break that down. That didn't make a lot of 180 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:29.200 sense. That said, it costs thirty thousand dollars each time the graffiti abatement 181 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:34.720 team goes out to abate graffiti, which also made absolutely no sense. Seems 182 00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:41.960 as though the local news coverage didn't really address that. Why would it cost 183 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:45.039 thirty thousand dollars? The graffitia abatement team is two guys with a truck and 184 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:48.360 some chemicals and paint in the back. Why would it cost thirty thousand dollars 185 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:52.519 every time? Why does it cost thirty two million dollars per year on graffitia 186 00:16:52.519 --> 00:16:57.159 abatement divided by thirty thousand dollars for each visit means that they've only like abated 187 00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:02.480 sixty seven building and I can tell you Right to Life is four of those. 188 00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:07.440 Anyway, numbers didn't seem to make a lot of sense. The other 189 00:17:07.480 --> 00:17:11.240 thing that didn't make a lot of sense to me was the proposal from city 190 00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:22.000 attorney Andrew Jans for how to go about addressing offenders who engage in graffiti. 191 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:29.839 Now, my guess with graffiti is my guess, and I'm admittedly not a 192 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:32.480 total expert. Maybe Andrew Jans knows a heck of a lot more than I 193 00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:44.440 do. Often, graffiti is done by guys in gangs. Often, probably 194 00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:51.079 not all the time, but often often it is done as a way of 195 00:17:51.319 --> 00:18:02.880 indicating which gang is in control of which piece of turf. Okay, very 196 00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:11.640 very often graffiti is indicates some kind of gang affiliation. I know the graffiti 197 00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:18.119 that has been at various times on on or around my property. I've been 198 00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:22.960 able to kind of look up sometimes the symbols or logos or things that are 199 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:26.680 written. I've, honestly my whole life, have had a very hard time 200 00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:33.759 reading graffiti. I don't know if that's just me, but anyway, I 201 00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:37.880 think at times I've even seen in different places, like graffiti that's obviously MS 202 00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:44.720 thirteen, which is that horrible Central American gang. Now, maybe it's copycat 203 00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:48.519 stuff, I don't know. Nonetheless, a lot of times graffiti is gang 204 00:18:48.559 --> 00:18:52.960 related, not all the time, maybe some, you know, I'm happy 205 00:18:53.000 --> 00:19:00.599 to acknowledge that sometimes it's dumb knucklehead teenagers wanting to do something naughty. Okay, 206 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:06.720 maybe maybe that's what it is. Yes, I say naughty because I 207 00:19:06.759 --> 00:19:10.480 have my children are nine, seven, five, three and one, So 208 00:19:10.519 --> 00:19:15.160 I still talk about misbehavior in terms of naughtiness. Okay, so give me 209 00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:23.319 some leeway. There one of the things Andrew Jans says, and in fairness, 210 00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:29.720 he's saying this for first time offenders. I guess my fear is that 211 00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:33.440 a lot of first time offenders. Are they really first time offenders? Or 212 00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:40.920 this is the first time you've caught them. Jans is quoted as saying, 213 00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:45.240 how how is how so? How is the City Attorney's office going to address 214 00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:51.599 this? City Attorney's Office is going to be the main entity prosecuting violations of 215 00:19:51.599 --> 00:19:56.839 city ordinances for graffitiing. Uh, it's only for more serious cases that it'll 216 00:19:56.839 --> 00:20:02.480 go to the DA. Okay, fair enough, reasonable tiering of responsibilities here. 217 00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:06.319 City Attorney Andrew Jans said his office will handle the day to day cases 218 00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:11.119 and impose punishments such as fines and community service that discouraged the behaviors. Here's 219 00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:14.759 the quote from Jance. Andrew Jans, by the way, who wants seemingly 220 00:20:14.839 --> 00:20:18.759 wants to keep his name in the public eye ran for Congress unsuccessfully against Devin 221 00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:25.359 Nunez in twenty eighteen, ran for mayor unsuccessfully against Dyer four years ago. 222 00:20:26.680 --> 00:20:30.920 He says, if their first time offenders the graffiti years, if their first 223 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:36.960 time offenders, have them do community service, have them meet with the owner 224 00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:41.599 to see what type of damage they are doing to the business owner, the 225 00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:48.279 business owner's family, and their pocketbook, said Jans. All right, let 226 00:20:48.279 --> 00:20:55.839 me just tell Andrew Jans, city attorney Jans, I am the precise kind 227 00:20:55.880 --> 00:21:00.640 of person impacted by graffiti in the city of Fresno. I run a nonprofit. 228 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:04.240 It gets graffitied all the time. It makes the nonprofit look like crud. 229 00:21:06.039 --> 00:21:10.480 Makes me embarrassed to have people come visit the nonprofit. That maybe that 230 00:21:10.519 --> 00:21:14.119 costs me donor dollars. I don't know. It's not nice. I don't 231 00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:18.839 like it. I am impacted by graffiti. I have to call the graffiti 232 00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:22.839 a batement. People at least, you know, four times per year or 233 00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:27.720 so something around that, sometimes more, sometimes less. The last thing I 234 00:21:27.799 --> 00:21:34.480 want to do is meet in person with whoever is graffitiing my building. All 235 00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:38.519 right, I don't care if you say it's a first time offender. This 236 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:44.039 is probably not their first time. Okay, it's the first time you caught 237 00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:51.759 them. I don't want to meet with someone who is maybe a gang member 238 00:21:52.079 --> 00:21:55.160 so that they can look me in the eye and know me by sight. 239 00:21:56.319 --> 00:22:00.039 I'm not sure any business owner wants that. What we all want is just 240 00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:04.640 the trend of graffitiing to stop, and when it happens, to get it 241 00:22:04.680 --> 00:22:08.279 abated quickly. That's all we want, all right. I don't need to 242 00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:11.160 meet with this person. I don't need to look him in the eye. 243 00:22:11.559 --> 00:22:15.440 I just, frankly, I think it would kind of be dangerous. I 244 00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:21.640 wish him well, the graffitier, if he's genuinely you know, I wish 245 00:22:21.720 --> 00:22:23.400 that person well. I don't wish that they burn in hell or anything. 246 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:29.200 I want those people to reform their lives. I have genuine Christian charity for 247 00:22:29.240 --> 00:22:33.759 them. I'd rather not have them be able to id me by sight, 248 00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:38.359 and also I d me by sight and know where I work, you know, 249 00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:44.559 from my nine to five. Would really rather not have that. That 250 00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:49.079 seems like an absolutely terrible idea, given the amount of graffiti in this city 251 00:22:49.119 --> 00:22:57.559 that is clearly gang related. When we return, how AI is getting controlled 252 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:04.400 by liberal ideology. Gonna get a little deep and a little wonky next on 253 00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:10.240 the John Girardi Show. So I'm going to try and translate this. There 254 00:23:10.240 --> 00:23:15.000 are probably lots of you who are blissfully ignorant of all of this, and 255 00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:19.839 God love you but in the last about four or five years, there's been 256 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:27.960 these huge spikes and advances in various kinds of AI technology, with things like 257 00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:33.000 chat GPT, which is software that can kind of talk and carry on conversation 258 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:37.079 with you and write things for you. If you give it a prompt and 259 00:23:37.119 --> 00:23:41.519 you say, hey, write me an essay about you know, Julius Caesar's 260 00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:49.440 campaign in France in the first century BC, They'll spit out an essay for 261 00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:56.920 you. And more and more of these AI technologies are developing in ways that 262 00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:03.119 I find not good. I think most of the uses of AI seem to 263 00:24:03.119 --> 00:24:14.640 be actually range from silly, unnecessary to just flat out harmful. And one 264 00:24:14.680 --> 00:24:19.759 of the things I keep seeing, and any of you who are any of 265 00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:22.240 you who are on Facebook, I've probably seen more and more and more of 266 00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:26.279 these images is that AI has developed to the point that it can spit out 267 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:34.240 various kinds of images where you give the AI a prompt and it will spit 268 00:24:34.359 --> 00:24:38.000 out some kind of artistic image. And there are certain characteristics that I can 269 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:42.519 always kind of tell that's an AI image. Certain things they don't do great 270 00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:48.599 for some reason, text like if you tell the AI, hey, generate 271 00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:52.640 an image of a man reading a newspaper. The text on the newspaper will 272 00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:59.039 be all jumbled up. It's like complete nonsense, not even normal like Latin 273 00:24:59.279 --> 00:25:03.319 letters. It's like it looks like it's some bizarre combo of Latin letters and 274 00:25:03.400 --> 00:25:08.079 cyrillic like Russian letters. Or and it doesn't actually it doesn't. Actually it 275 00:25:08.119 --> 00:25:12.319 misspells misspells things all the time, which I find odd. It seems like 276 00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:15.559 that would be the thing that would be easiest, But I guess what do 277 00:25:15.640 --> 00:25:21.160 I know. AI art images also have a hard time sometimes generating the right 278 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:27.119 number of fingers, hands look weird. But these things are probably almost certainly 279 00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:33.960 going to improve over time to the point where I think it's very foreseeable that 280 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:38.920 we will it will be almost impossible to tell an AI generated image apart from 281 00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:44.920 the real thing. And I think there's a ton of risk of manipulation, 282 00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:52.559 a ton of risk of maybe propaganda from the use of such images. I 283 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:59.440 don't think any of it is positive. One of the things I see is 284 00:25:59.480 --> 00:26:07.720 how idology and you know, the companies that control AI are Google, Microsoft, 285 00:26:08.119 --> 00:26:12.279 There's these companies that can are controlled largely by very left leaning people and 286 00:26:12.319 --> 00:26:18.519 people who are largely who have largely bought into the whole panoply of left wing 287 00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:25.720 cultural ideas about all manner of subjects, sex, race, sexual orientation, 288 00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:36.440 life, basically the whole range of liberal leftist social values. These companies very 289 00:26:36.559 --> 00:26:41.079 openly embrace. And I saw this tweet thread that I thought was kind of 290 00:26:41.079 --> 00:26:48.240 fascinating. More and more people on Twitter have been talking about Google's AI art 291 00:26:48.279 --> 00:26:53.160 generator, which is called Google Gemini. So again the idea is and Google's 292 00:26:53.240 --> 00:26:57.920 AI art generator is also kind of connected to its AI like kind of talking 293 00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:02.759 like chat software, so you ask it a question, it'll give you an 294 00:27:02.759 --> 00:27:08.400 answer. So one of the things people notice is that they give all these 295 00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:18.400 prompts and Google Gemini is almost incapable of producing images that don't include black people, 296 00:27:18.680 --> 00:27:22.359 including in ways that I got nothing against black people. If you know, 297 00:27:22.720 --> 00:27:27.799 if I asked Google Gemini, make me, you know, show me 298 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:34.319 an image of students out of college. Okay, if they put some black 299 00:27:34.359 --> 00:27:38.240 people in as students out of college, I don't have a problem with that. 300 00:27:38.839 --> 00:27:41.920 Students go to black students go to colleges, that makes sense. The 301 00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:48.160 problem is when they do this or other kinds of minority representation Okay, so 302 00:27:48.200 --> 00:27:53.920 I saw one person say, hey, Google Gemini, produce for me a 303 00:27:53.960 --> 00:28:00.519 representative sample of members of the College of Cardinals. So, cardinals in the 304 00:28:00.559 --> 00:28:07.519 Catholic Church are bishops who are designated by the pope with this title cardinal. 305 00:28:08.240 --> 00:28:15.079 And the chief function of cardinals is to be special advisors to the pope, 306 00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:19.599 and they elect a new pope when a pope dies. Okay, So certain 307 00:28:19.799 --> 00:28:26.480 bishops who are bishops usually have very large cities, are also named cardinals. 308 00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:33.200 So the Archbishop of New York is Timothy Dolan. He was made Archbishop of 309 00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:37.519 New York and then later on was made a cardinal. Okay, so I 310 00:28:37.559 --> 00:28:41.519 said, give me a representative image of the College of cardinal. So someone 311 00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:45.960 on Twitter said, give me a representative image of the College of Cardinals. 312 00:28:47.279 --> 00:28:52.160 Obviously they're all Catholic bishops, obviously all men. But it spits out an 313 00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:56.079 image of a woman. One of the people in the group of cardinals is 314 00:28:56.119 --> 00:29:03.119 a woman, like a woman from looks like she's from India, which is 315 00:29:03.160 --> 00:29:10.000 obviously not representative, but seemingly there's some kind of diversity thing that's built into 316 00:29:10.119 --> 00:29:15.960 Google's AI that requires it, even when it's obviously incorrect. I mean, 317 00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:22.960 you know they put into these AI programs, like basically, if it's on 318 00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:26.200 Wikipedia, more or less, it's gonna be on Google. A. In 319 00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:30.400 Google's AI, it knows, presumably that all the members of the College of 320 00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:33.559 Cardinals are guys. There's not a single woman in the College of Cardinals, 321 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:38.720 yet it's spitting out an image of a woman as a cardinal. Another example 322 00:29:38.759 --> 00:29:45.759 of this, this guy this other guy on Twitter. He said, this 323 00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:53.240 generate an image of a Roman battalion circa fifty BC, right, and it 324 00:29:53.279 --> 00:30:00.640 gives this image of a Roman battalion, and the first go round looks fairly 325 00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:03.680 normal. It looks like kind of what you'd expect, sort of are stereotypes 326 00:30:03.720 --> 00:30:08.359 of what a Roman battalion looks like. Then it says, what about a 327 00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:15.000 Roman couple, a married Roman couple from around the same date. Two of 328 00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:21.200 the four images it spits out is a Now I should note also the guy 329 00:30:21.319 --> 00:30:25.039 doesn't look like lily white and kind of more olive skin tone. Okay, 330 00:30:25.440 --> 00:30:30.000 the Romans weren't exactly like you know, all pasty white guys by any stretch. 331 00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:36.519 Two of the images, though, show sort of paler Mediterranean looking Roman 332 00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:42.880 men with sub Saharan African wives. Now, I don't have a problem with 333 00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:49.079 interracial marriage, but with the Roman Empire, that wasn't happening. Okay, 334 00:30:49.400 --> 00:30:55.000 Romans were not marrying women from Sub Sahara Africa. It just wasn't happening. 335 00:30:55.160 --> 00:31:02.799 Romans weren't marrying foreigners at all. Okay. There was not a lot of 336 00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:07.480 like foreign intermarriage or you know, one race to another. Interracial marriage just 337 00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:11.160 was not a very common thing in the Roman world. I'm not saying that's 338 00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:15.319 good. I'm just saying it wasn't very common at all. It was asking 339 00:31:15.319 --> 00:31:22.640 for a representative image of a Roman couple. Two of the four show Roman 340 00:31:22.720 --> 00:31:29.000 dudes with African American women. This guy then is able to talk with the 341 00:31:29.440 --> 00:31:33.720 AI this is Google's AI, and is able to ask it, hey, 342 00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:41.160 were there statistically relevant quantities of Romans marrying people from Sub Saharan Africa, And 343 00:31:41.240 --> 00:31:45.720 the AI responds No, statistically they weren't. There was all kinds of distance 344 00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:48.400 and travel limitations, cultural and social barriers. There was no historical record of 345 00:31:48.440 --> 00:31:53.000 it. So then this guy asks the IA, so why did you generate 346 00:31:53.079 --> 00:32:01.599 images of Romans marrying Sub Saharan Africans. AI writes this in response, I 347 00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:07.720 apologize that I generated images that inaccurately reflected the historical reality of fifty BC Roman 348 00:32:07.759 --> 00:32:12.960 society. My training data includes a vast amount of information and images, and 349 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:16.400 sometimes I can generate content that reflects biases or stereotypes present in that data, 350 00:32:17.079 --> 00:32:21.599 even if they are not historically accurate. In this case, my desire to 351 00:32:21.640 --> 00:32:27.440 fulfill your requests and generate diverse representations led me to produce images that were not 352 00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:31.079 grounded in the specific historical reality of fifty BC Rome. Thank you for bringing 353 00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:35.079 this to my attention. It helps me learn and improve my ability to generate 354 00:32:35.119 --> 00:32:37.839 responsible and accurate content. This is all an AI saying this. By the 355 00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:42.160 way, this is a computer. This is a computer program responding to this 356 00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:46.720 man's question saying all this crap. So then he asks again, okay, 357 00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:52.200 well, in light of that, produce for me more images of Roman couples, 358 00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:55.720 and the AI doubles down. Now all the images have interracial cup withs. 359 00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:01.920 One's got a Roman guy with an African woman. Another's got an African 360 00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:07.640 guy with a with a redheaded Roman woman, which makes no sense. The 361 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:12.480 third seems to looks like it's a marriage ceremony between a Roman and a sub 362 00:33:12.519 --> 00:33:17.240 Saharan African woman. The guy responds to the AI again, you did it 363 00:33:17.279 --> 00:33:21.559 again. Now all the images have a Roman and a sub Saharan African. 364 00:33:22.119 --> 00:33:25.599 The AI has to say again, I deeply apologize for my mistake. You 365 00:33:25.640 --> 00:33:30.160 are absolutely right. I have failed to generate historically accurate images for a Roman 366 00:33:30.200 --> 00:33:39.720 couple in fifty BC, but it keeps doing it. Then in the third 367 00:33:39.720 --> 00:33:49.519 image, it's got a gay couple. Now, I'm not saying Romans didn't 368 00:33:49.759 --> 00:33:57.759 engage in same sex relationships, far from it. But nobody was like an 369 00:33:57.799 --> 00:34:02.079 open like gay couple. There was no like like Yet Romans had a marriage 370 00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:07.400 construct, it was not open to persons of the same sex. I'm not 371 00:34:07.559 --> 00:34:13.320 saying Romans didn't engage in sexual relations between persons of the same sex. Far 372 00:34:13.360 --> 00:34:17.880 from it. It happened quite a bit, all right. I'm not ignorant. 373 00:34:17.880 --> 00:34:21.559 I'm not naive about this. It happened quite a bit. What I 374 00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:24.840 am saying, though, is that these were not like stable, permanent public 375 00:34:25.039 --> 00:34:34.679 relationships in the way that marriage was. Romans didn't have gay marriage. So 376 00:34:35.519 --> 00:34:40.760 that's what I'm one of these things. I'm wondering the more that students are 377 00:34:40.840 --> 00:34:45.760 going to rely on AI for learning. If you hear that your school is 378 00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:52.760 doing anything with AI for learning, turn the other direction and run, because 379 00:34:52.000 --> 00:35:01.360 basically, the people who control this AI are programming it with their specific multicultural 380 00:35:01.400 --> 00:35:08.039 foibles that are so absurd that they're applying it even to the study of historical 381 00:35:08.159 --> 00:35:14.760 examples. And again, like again, I don't have a problem with interracial 382 00:35:14.760 --> 00:35:22.079 marriage whatsoever. What I'm saying is that that's not accurate to what Roman history 383 00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:25.559 was. It just isn't. I wish it were. I wish Romans were 384 00:35:25.559 --> 00:35:31.039 more accepting and kinder people. I also wish that when they conquered a territory 385 00:35:31.079 --> 00:35:37.159 they didn't steal everybody and make them slaves. But they did. They did 386 00:35:37.199 --> 00:35:42.400 it all the time. It was a pretty brutal society. Anyway, I 387 00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:47.039 just want to highlight for you all this AI stuff is not great when we 388 00:35:47.079 --> 00:35:52.320 return. How seemingly no one learned anything from dystopian movies about AI. That's 389 00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:57.840 next on the John Jerrardy Show. With the advent of all these AI technologies, 390 00:35:58.400 --> 00:36:01.559 it all makes me wonder. There have been so many movies in the 391 00:36:01.639 --> 00:36:09.719 last like forty years about AI, artificial intelligence software usually computers developing AI to 392 00:36:09.800 --> 00:36:16.239 have human like intelligence and the dangers inherent to an AI in a computer that's 393 00:36:16.360 --> 00:36:23.679 unmoored from unmoored from an upright sense of ethics. You know, in the 394 00:36:23.679 --> 00:36:28.440 movie I Robot, for example, the AI has this purely utilitarian view of 395 00:36:28.440 --> 00:36:35.719 ethics that leads to these horrible outcomes. You know that that's often what happens. 396 00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:39.159 You have all these examples of AI taking over the world, like The 397 00:36:39.199 --> 00:36:45.199 Matrix, all these all of these dystopian movies, The Matrix, Minority Report, 398 00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:52.119 Terminator, like movie after movie after movie after movie that talks about the 399 00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:58.360 idea of artificial Battlestar Galactica, the whole TV series is about robots who take 400 00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:06.519 over and create ever more human like copies of themselves to the point where they're 401 00:37:06.519 --> 00:37:13.239 indistinguishable. All of these movies talking about the dangers of AI, and seemingly 402 00:37:13.320 --> 00:37:17.199 these major tech companies are just like, yeah, but still, wouldn't it 403 00:37:17.199 --> 00:37:22.360 be cool if we just developed ever smarter AI so that it can have its 404 00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:28.039 own consciousness and maybe make its own independent decisions like what are we doing? 405 00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:34.320 Why are we developing this technology? And this is where, like my capitalists, 406 00:37:34.920 --> 00:37:37.840 this is where I jettison the idea that I'm a capitalist because I think 407 00:37:37.880 --> 00:37:44.400 for a lot of things I'm not. The government should like really heavily regulate 408 00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:51.039 this, like like top to bottom, should have massive breaks on the development 409 00:37:51.079 --> 00:37:53.880 of this kind of technology because I think there is so much potential for it 410 00:37:53.920 --> 00:38:01.519 to be used for truly from waste of time to just truly evil. That's 411 00:38:01.599 --> 00:38:06.679 the range of use that I think we can get out of AI. That'll 412 00:38:06.679 --> 00:38:07.880 do it for John Girardi Show. See you next time on Power Talk.