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In an exclusive interview with India Today at Davos, Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, shares his insights on the dual disruptions of Donald Trump’s presidency and the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
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00:00welcome back to our continuing coverage here at the davos brainstorm on india today as you can see
00:13it's getting dark uh the sun has set but it hasn't set on our conversations because
00:19with donald trump around the conversations continue uh he's remember spoken today to
00:26the ukrainian president zelensky zelensky addressed the gathering here and said that
00:31he hopes that peace will come to ukraine sooner rather than later and of course the border peace
00:37for gaza has also been initiated by president trump plus of course there is ai the other big
00:43disruptor i'm joined now by a very special guest live nicholas thompson is currently the ceo of
00:48the atlantic a magazine in the united states that's looked at and taken very seriously by both sides
00:55of america's political divide good to have you nicholas on the show thank you very much
01:00to be here in india today thanks for having me you know i want to understand do you make can you make
01:05sense for us of all that's happened over the last 24 hours i was a short while ago listening to
01:10zelensky who sounded someone desperate to get this war to end thousands of people dying donald trump
01:17is getting vladimir putin to sign on the border peace on gaza but at the same time donald trump
01:25is promising zelensky is going to end the war in ukraine makes sense for us uh nicholas of what's
01:30going on around us that's very hard to make sense i mean donald trump acts very impulsively he has many
01:34different ideas he moves from one thing to another and the whole world follows him that's kind of the
01:39nature of his presidency and he tends to in general get a lot of what he wants but he moves forward he
01:45moves backwards he moves to the side and everybody just follows him because of his power because of his
01:49charisma because the influence he holds you know we are you saying therefore that uh that that we
01:55should sort of press the pause button when we look at and in or not react instantly to what donald trump
02:03says or does so exactly so i mean this is a good case in greenland right so there was a moment i went
02:08to a dinner on monday night i mean that was a long time ago it's thursday and everybody at dinner on
02:13monday night was like america's gonna have greenland by the end of the month and well no actually
02:19sometimes he says things and then he backs down sometimes he says something and somebody pushes
02:23against something he backs down sometimes he says something and the bond markets do something and
02:28he backs down so you just don't know you see nicholas that makes it a little more difficult possibly as a
02:34media practitioner and you've been a journalist as well before you became a ceo of tracking someone
02:39like trump because there is no certitude it's exciting but how do you make sense of it as a media
02:45person particularly in the united states how do you how does the media cover someone like donald trump
02:52objectively well i think the important thing is first of all to do what you just said to cover
02:58him objectively to like understand exactly what he's doing the reality of what he's doing and talk
03:03to people who support him and understand what they're saying but also look at the real world consequences
03:09and try to get it as factually accurate as possible and not to act on impulse right he acts on impulse
03:14he says whatever comes to mind but the role of the press is quite different it's to be thoughtful it's
03:20to be serious it's to be accurate it's to make sure that you're measured in the right ways when he does
03:25something wrong call it out when there's something right call it out that's the role but but can i ask
03:30you this because the atlantic has been in the crosses of of donald trump at times there was the whole
03:34signal gate incident where one of your editors was found himself on a on a group chat involving
03:40america's plans for attacking the hootie rebels yeah if you criticize donald trump do you get a
03:47pushback is there a pushback from white house do you get is there a fear factor what can you say and
03:53what can you not ah well this is a good this is an instructive story so jeff goldberg the editor-in-chief
03:58ends up in that signal chat yes last you know almost a year ago and immediately the white house says oh
04:03that we call them up jeff calls them up that morning before we publish as you do and they say
04:08oh yeah that's true so we publish the story great and then a few hours later like it's false right and
04:13they start to kind of gaslight and they're inaccurate about it but then eventually everybody realizes of
04:19course the story is true now this is a story that didn't make the trump administration look great
04:24obviously but what happened next well the next thing that happened is jeff goldberg was at an
04:27interview with donald trump that's donald trump paid attention so there wasn't you can imagine a
04:32media organization ending up in his crosshairs and you can imagine consequences or you can imagine
04:36him saying okay i guess this publication is important i guess this publication played by the
04:41rules they did we did call right we did make sure everything was totally fact checked and then goldberg
04:47went in and saw him so i mean in in that sense uh is the american media now is there a pushback at all
04:55for example yesterday when he went and targeted his european allies like no other u.s president has ever
05:00done almost rupturing to use mark carney's words the entire global order of this alliance between
05:07europe and the u.s would the u.s media call him out do you call up some call out someone who's a big
05:14bully because across the world this is a problem that the media often has you have these political
05:18strongmen who don't like criticism does donald trump take criticism as long as it gets in the headlines
05:26so what we did you look at the atlantic and you read tom nichols you read apple bomb you read david
05:31from we just said this is what he said and this is what the consequences are this is the history of
05:36greenland this is what he can do on greenland if he doesn't take it this is what will happen if he
05:40takes it and some of these consequences will be terrible we just wrote about it we wrote about it
05:44quite critically and quite toughly and we're just going to keep doing that all the time so are you
05:49making a difference between reporting what donald trump does rather than being opinionated about
05:54donald trump well you could right correct you report on what he does and you report on what the
05:58consequences but that doesn't mean you have to be both side you also can have a point of view in the
06:02stories right you read ann applebaum ann applebaum has a very strong point of view she she has a strong
06:07view and a very persuasive view about what will make the world better more harmonious more economically
06:13prosperous so so from your point of view from your vantage position as you look at what has been
06:18happening over the last 12 months do you see this unsettled world the new normal that when you
06:25track a donald trump come to the world economic forum hear him sort of taking on virtually everyone
06:30anyone and everyone calling people stupid uh do you feel embarrassed at one level as an american
06:35or do you feel that uh you know this is donald trump this is a person who's been elected by the people
06:41of america i think the biggest maybe the most interesting question i've had this conversation a lot in davos
06:46donald trump is not very popular in america right 36 percent of people approve of him or whatever it
06:51is right far less popular in the world definitely change the perception of america in the world
06:56when donald trump is gone in three years and we have a new president maybe it's jd vance maybe it's
07:00somebody else how will the world think of america will it be ruptured forever will it be completely
07:06different forever i don't know that's a question that a lot of people have in davos but when you're
07:10talking to people at the world economic forum across the board do they feel actually american power is
07:15getting diminished and you're seeing the rise of chinese power you're seeing other countries in a
07:19way occupying the space that once america did how does how do business how does big business outside
07:26america see a donald trump we see big business in america and you can correct me if i'm wrong almost
07:31fearful of a donald trump is that the case and across the world is there a sense that american power is
07:36diminishing there's a sense both that the amount that the world likes america is diminishing right like
07:43the brand of america is diminishing around the world and you can feel there's some places where
07:48it's up like a lot of venezuelans are happy with america right now but for most of the world there's
07:52a sense that we're now a rogue nation and what's very interesting is that if you look at the kind of
07:57autocracy versus democracy united states versus china it used to be the united states and its european
08:02allies that's a much bigger coalition than just the united states now trump's position that he made in
08:08his speech yesterday is hey we got the biggest stock market stock market's going up which is true
08:13therefore more or less everything's okay i think the world sees it pretty differently so if there is
08:18to be a backlash a pushback in america as you say his popularity popularity ratings have come down not
08:24necessarily down to the bottom they've run down pretty far yeah it's about 36 as you said approve of
08:30him do you believe that the domestic situation in america will determine 2026 particularly given
08:37that you have midterm elections in november that if inflation continues to spike and hit people
08:42if jobs slow down uh if tariffs continue to hit the american people as well that's when donald trump
08:49will be tested that will be a very big it's two things are going to be tested so donald trump will
08:53be tested if indeed this happens if his approval ratings stay low and 36 percent not exactly the
08:58fluctuates up and down you know he will be tested and american democracy might be tested right and
09:03the question will be will we have free and fair midterms right will we have actual elections donald
09:08trump the other day said we might not need to have midterms he was kind of more joking but sometimes
09:12you have to take the joke seriously so if we have free and fair midterms which i think we will he will
09:17be tested if the democrats win either the house or the senate or both that will change the dynamics in
09:23america it won't suddenly make trump recessive and quiet and change the kind of speeches
09:28he give but it'll change his ability to sort of run straight through things before we move to the
09:33ai the other big disruptor in general uh have you have you interacted with donald trump much as the
09:40ceo of atlantic no that's the job of the editors i run the business you know the editor-in-chief runs
09:44the editorial side donald trump doesn't care about our business like i sell subscriptions i sell ads
09:48but as you know as a business when you talk to business persons across america how do they perceive
09:55donald trump are they they seem to be lining up behind him is there are they lining up out of fear
10:00or are they lining up because you know the markets are up and a couple things actually so number one
10:06there are a lot of his policies that business likes right deregulation right he has a much softer
10:12position on antitrust than the biden administration they like that right donald trump has like cracked
10:18down on dei right there are a lot of business leaders who are appreciative of that and you hear that
10:22on davos right so there are a whole bunch of factors you know deregulation is a huge one that
10:28make the business community like republicans like donald trump they like his tax policies right so
10:33there's much that they like on the other hand some of it is also fear and knowledge that if you get on
10:39his bad side he will make it very hard for your business and if you get on his good side good things
10:44happen to your business so some of it is real politic some of it is actual agreement the reason i'm saying
10:51this i remember uh meeting bob woodward uh the great journalist the legendary journalist and he
10:55said donald trump likes to be in the company of rich people yeah so he must like being in davos in
11:00that sense but you know he seems to like wealth there's a report in the new york times now about
11:06how much the family the trump family has acquired in just about a year since he's taken over power
11:11those are serious uh investigations that perhaps uh you know donald trump and sooner or later will have
11:17to answer for will he be held accountable you know one of the we ran this great piece by jonathan
11:22rauch and it was early in trump's tenure and it said the thing that will break trump will be corruption
11:27and this is what often happens with people who sort of aspire to autocratic like tenure and who start
11:32to like try to make their family members and friends wealthy and move you know move the levers of
11:36government to help them the public doesn't like that right and when the public sees how much money
11:43the trump family and others are acquiring near trump that's not something that goes over well right
11:48it helps it helps them secure business but the average american who thinks trump is fighting for
11:52them when they see this money that's not going to work will the epstein files also haunt him
11:57they haven't been good for him i mean who knows when the whole epstein files are out depends what's
12:02in the epstein files and whether there's more about trump or there's not more about trump i have no idea
12:06okay let's talk about the other big disruption and this is something that you've done over the years
12:10as a tech journalist which is ai that's the other big running theme here in davos yeah do you believe
12:16and this is the question i've asked everyone is ai the bubble that some call it or is it the most
12:21transformative change since electricity as some others suggest where do you stand on this ai
12:26revolution it's closer to the most transformative change since electricity it is the most transformative
12:30no no no it's closer to that if bubble is here most transformative change since electricity ai is
12:34like on this side of the ledger it might be as big as electricity there is also a chance of a bubble
12:39like both things can be true right i do think it is one of the most amazing technologies ever created
12:44it is also true that it is not providing a ton of value to most businesses unless you are like in the
12:49computer coding industry or in the ai industry itself you're not getting a ton of value it takes a while
12:54right so there may be a bubble because of the over investment and the way loans flow and the lack of
12:59money to pay back for it so you could have a bubble you could have a collapse but the technology is
13:03genuinely awesome and will be massively transformative over the long run so the reason i'm asking you this is
13:09there's a feeling that many of these ai companies are overvalued the markets are being driven by
13:13them do you agree with that that at some stage there will be a cautionary note struck or for the
13:18next year at least the world is going to ride this ai bandwagon i think for the next year the world is
13:23going to ride the ai bandwagon and veg what do you see as the future in that sense do we even know
13:28just as we don't we can't predict what trump will do next do we know what ai will predict next i
13:32listen to elon musk here and he said there'll be billion robotic uh uh ais across the world
13:38there will not okay robots much harder to build like the fact that large language models can go
13:44like this doesn't mean that robots go like this robots are harder dexterity is hard elon has all
13:49these optimist robots in order to get an optimist robot to do something you have to train it a ton
13:53on humans or you have to teleoperate and have a man behind the curtain like robots are hard there will
13:57be many robots they will be awesome it's going to take some time what i'm going to predict with ai
14:02is that it's going to shift a little bit right now it's a small number of companies using what
14:06are called scaling laws you just buy more compute bigger computers more data there is going to be
14:10new architecture for ai in the next year that will mean that other companies can get in the game it
14:15will be more an ideas based game than just a money based game and that will change so many parts of
14:20the dynamics so that's my actual prediction nicholas is your other prediction that china and the u.s
14:25will engage the next big race is not the arms race the ai race these are these two big powers
14:30which are competing with each other the chinese are also innovating in ai do you see that as the
14:35next big race something that countries like india have to look carefully at well it is a big race
14:41right now and it's been a big race i wrote a story on the you know u.s china ai cold war back in 2018
14:46right this has been a big race for a while it gets hotter it gets tenser i kind of wish it went in the
14:53other direction my hope would be that we start having a little more detente a little more shared
14:57technology between them and then a little more ai dispersion around the world so that there's you
15:03know as much ai economic opportunity in india as there is in america so if you were to advise and i
15:08know you're not going to but if you were to advise the indian government on how to deal with the trump
15:12challenge on one side and the ai challenge i'm separating it in two ways how would you how would
15:17you advise any any leader to deal with a donald trump from your experience i mean push back on the
15:23things that really matter listen to him and then also negotiate with the people on his team like
15:28you look at trump's ai policy he has some very smart people running his ai policy so if you're a big ai
15:33company talk to those people right remember that trump is his own person with a whole bunch of people
15:38working under him some of whom are quite competent some of whom are not and on ai therefore you're
15:43saying work with people around trump but should india join this race is this a race which will be a
15:48two-horse race at the moment or will other countries join the ai race according to you i mean india should
15:53india has amazing tech companies it has amazing tech talent and in fact people from india who run most
16:00of america many of america's biggest tech companies you know india has actually done a good job building
16:05open source ai using building up its own ai models making sure that there's ai customized for indian needs
16:11i would recommend for the indian government to invest heavily in things that the state can do
16:18to help ai companies grow ways that you can provide state data to help indian tech companies
16:23and ways to help indian technology spread around the world absolutely okay now i want to turn to a
16:29subject that's close to your heart you've just written a book i have the the running ground yes i want
16:34to tell uh people that uh nicholas is an ultra marathoner yes uh which is what how ultra marathon
16:41is anything more than 26 miles so you can run 30 miles it's an ultra marathon the longest races i do
16:45now are 100k so 62 miles and what does what does this is running almost therapeutic to you when you're
16:52running a when you're running a magazine like atlantic in the trump age careful about what your editors
16:58may be writing or who's going to call you up from the business world is running therapeutic yeah running
17:03is a way for me to open my mind and meditate it's a way to break from some of the stress of the day so
17:08i figure i i consider an absolutely essential part of my day so here we are in davos you know i didn't
17:14go to any of the parties last night where they they're good right i would didn't i haven't gone to
17:19any of the parties because i was working and and talking to people but go ahead so i get up at 6 a.m
17:23and i go and i run up the mountain and you know what it does it clears my head it helps me think it
17:27makes me feel better about the world it's a it's a way of being in touch with nature so i love it as both
17:32like a spiritual practice and just a great thing to do you you ran up the mountain by the way marathon
17:37running is becoming big in india i know you've got to come to the mumbai marathon tcs sponsors the
17:43new york marathon a lot of my book is about the new york marathon i got to come run the mumbai
17:47marathon you've got to come it's in the month of january so when your viewers make my book a
17:50bestseller i'm coming i'm going to run any marathon in india i'm all in ah you see this is the problem when
17:55i write my books and promote them people say i'm promoting them but i like people who promote books
17:59because you know it's your work and you have every reason to talk about it uh just in conclusion
18:05yeah if we come back to davos uh nicholas a year from now do you think the world will be a more
18:10settled place or do you believe as i said that this kind of disruption is now the new world order
18:16someone on my show today said we are in a new world disorder is that how you see it sadly yes and
18:22i think that ai as i said earlier i don't think there's going to be a bubble i don't think there's
18:26going to be a crash i don't think there's going to be that kind of chaos but it's going to change
18:29the world a lot more quickly than it has been i don't know what year whether it'll be in two years
18:33three years or next year but there's going to be a lot of economic change because of ai you combine
18:38that with all the change that the trump administration creates davos 2027 it's not going to be calm but
18:45you know it's a good time in a sense nicholas to be in the media business oh it's not boring
18:49it's not boring it's exciting people want to watch india today and they want to read the atlantic
18:53it's it's good you know may you live in interesting times absolutely i mean i haven't
18:58seen i came to davos the first time i have worried about the cold worried about who would i interview
19:05and why and i have been absolutely i'm a political journalist i've just been enthralled by the
19:10geopolitics around us unstable but exciting times oh it's it's it's amazing let's just hope the chaos
19:17isn't terrible we'll live through exciting changes and if we do our jobs well and if we can help
19:22inform people democracies can make better decisions right so that's why we're in this business that's
19:26why media matters so keep doing it and i'll keep doing mine the fourth estate still matters definitely
19:31absolutely 100 okay that's a good positive note in on which to end this fascinating conversation that
19:36we've had with nicholas thompson he is remember the ceo of the atlantic and uh giving your given your
19:43vantage position i appreciate you taking the time off to give our viewers a sense of the two great
19:48disruptions of our time trump and ai
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