When Apple TV+ dashed a planned third season. gave The problem with John Stewart In late 2023, reports surfaced that the streamer had decided to cancel the show after butting heads with its host over potential topics he wanted to cover. Chief among them were China and artificial intelligence. Six months later, Stewart has found a less cluttered platform – which happens to be his old one – to share his thoughts on these hot-button issues. The Daily Show — and in its April 1 episode, the world finally got a chance to see Stewart’s AI critiques, which Apple had little to say about the platform.
The segment opens with Stewart talking about how AI-generated images and deepfakes are becoming increasingly convincing, making it harder to separate fact from fiction on the Internet. It’s a development, he says, that’s a no-brainer for the people in charge of the technology. Cut to: A series of clips of AI’s biggest evangelists talking about its long-term potential (treating disease, solving climate change, etc.) without regard for its short-term consequences. After a clip of Google CEO Sundar Pichai saying the technology is “deeper than fire or lightning”, Stewart said, “Yeah, dick-sucking, fire!” Stewart expressed his concern that the technology would replace human jobs, leaving people unable to support themselves economically and without a daily purpose. Cut to: A series of other clips from AI evangelists clearly validating this concern. “It’s like more people being productive without the taxes,” says Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. “People tax: previously called as employees,” explained Stewart. In another clip, an unnamed CEO clumsily tries to justify laying off 90 percent of his staff in favor of AI: “It’s brutal if you think like a human.”
Later in the segment, Stewart outlines how lawmakers are ill-equipped for the challenge of regulating this technology and points out how every politician since ancient times has has repeated the same point about how people whose jobs have been changed can be retrained. It is limited. Profitable new job AI speculation? “Prompt engineer,” who Stewart refers to as “kind of a question guy.” Ultimately, Stewart zooms out and explains that there is no reason to be optimistic about regulation of this technology when its capitalistic potential is so vast. “That’s the game,” he says. “Whether it’s globalization, industrialization, or now, artificial intelligence, the lifestyle you’re used to is no match for the promise of high profits and new markets. Which sounds brutal, if you’re human.”