Transcript

How concerned should we be about AI? 'We've never been in a situation like this before'

From MS NOW · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 10 min · 1,801 words · 15 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "How concerned should we be about AI? 'We've never been in a situation like this before'", an episode of MS NOW published February 13, 2026 (10 min, about 1,801 words). It mentions 6 people, works and ideas, including Artificial Intelligence, Josh Terengel, Sean Bannon, Bernie Sanders, Matt Schumer.

What this episode is about

The discussion highlights the urgent concerns surrounding AI's rapid advancement and its potential impact on the workforce, contrasting alarmist views with more moderate perspectives that suggest there is still time for regulation and adaptation. Through insights from experts, the conversation seeks to address whether society is adequately prepared for the seismic shifts AI may bring to jobs and the economy.

Key takeaways

  • Prepare for AI disruptions like toilet paper shortages—dismissive attitudes now could lead to chaotic consequences later.
  • Economists are stuck in the past; AI's rapid evolution might render their predictive models obsolete overnight.
  • Tech CEOs are dodging responsibility—fearing backlash for potential job losses while the clock ticks on AI impacts.
  • If AI wipes out jobs without a safety net, who buys the products? An economy without consumers is a paradox.
  • AI’s speed could outpace our ability to adapt; it’s the disruptive tech equivalent of a runaway train on a steep incline.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 3:00: Josh Terengel, Matt Schumer, Artificial Intelligence
  2. – 6:00: Artificial Intelligence, Sean Bannon
  3. – 9:00: Sean Bannon, Bernie Sanders
  4. – 10:17: Bernie Sanders, Ron DeSantis

Notable quotes from "How concerned should we be about AI? 'We've never been in a situation like this before'"

  • AI EXECUTIVE MATT SCHUMER ARGUED IN A VIRAL BLOG POST THIS WEEK THAT YOU'VE PROBABLY SEEN THAT THIS IS ANOTHER IT HAS TO DO THIS TIME WITH THE A.I.
    about Matt Schumer · at
  • Joining us, staff writer at The Atlantic, Josh Terengel, author of the article, America Isn't Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs.
    about Josh Terengel · at
  • You've said AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment to 10 % to 20 % in the next one to five years.
    about Artificial Intelligence · at
  • One that I'm going to have you explain to me as Steve Bannon's idea is a reasonable, sane-sounding idea.
    about Sean Bannon · at
  • As you say, Bernie Sanders is coming out and saying we need to just stop building the data centers.
    about Bernie Sanders · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Josh Terengel — Person · Main guest · 2 mentions · first at
    Atlantic staff writer interviewed about his March cover story on how AI may reshape jobs and why the U.S. is unprepared.
  • Sean Bannon — Person · Referenced political actor / quoted interviewee · 4 mentions · first at
    Presented as an unusual populist voice advocating extreme AI regulation (including a proposed government stake/takeover), aligned in concern with Bernie Sanders.
  • Bernie Sanders — Person · Referenced political actor · 3 mentions · first at
    Cited as sharing concerns with Bannon about protecting workers from AI disruption; mentioned as calling for halting data center buildout.
  • Matt Schumer — Person · Referenced expert (AI executive/blogger) · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as the author of a viral blog post warning that society is unprepared for catastrophic AI-driven change; serves as a foil to Terengel's more reported analysis.
  • Ron DeSantis — Person · Referenced political actor · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a prominent politician beginning to address AI, signaling that AI regulation and job impacts are becoming salient political issues.
    Ron DeSantis, by the way, is now beginning to address it.

Concepts & topics

  • Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at
    Central theme of the episode, discussing the potential catastrophic changes and unpreparedness for AI's impact on jobs and the economy.

Full transcript with timestamps

Here is a question you never want to get asked. Is it February 2020 all over again? Remember back then when there were whispers of a virus spreading overseas? Those who prepared for it, the ones stocking up on toilet paper, WERE DISMISSED AS SOMEHOW NEUROTIC. THREE WEEKS LATER, THOUGH, THE WORLD SHUT DOWN. IT SHUT DOWN FOR TWO YEARS. AI EXECUTIVE MATT SCHUMER ARGUED IN A VIRAL BLOG POST THIS WEEK THAT YOU'VE PROBABLY SEEN THAT THIS IS ANOTHER IT HAS TO DO THIS TIME WITH THE A.I. REVOLUTION, THAT WE ARE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED FOR THE CATASTROPHIC CHANGES THAT TECHNOLOGY COULD BRING TO OUR WORLD AND SOON.

THE The narratives around AI have been all over the place. On one end, you have doomsday warnings like Schumer's. And on the other, there's a more skeptical view that the hype is being driven by executives eager to please investors, and that there's still time for regulation and adaptation before AI wipes out large swaths of the workforce. In The Atlantic's March cover story, Josh Terengel offers one of the fullest pictures yet of what AI may mean for work. He draws from interviews with economists and policy makers and public statements from tech leaders to answer the big question, are we prepared for what's coming?

Joining us, staff writer at The Atlantic, Josh Terengel, author of the article, America Isn't Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs. We also have joining us co-hosts of the Prof G Markets podcast at Elson. Josh, really good to have you. Great article. I read it after the Matt Schumer piece. It made me feel a little bit better, but only for a portion of it. I guess explain what you were trying to answer here. Yeah, look, I think there's a bunch of people who just want to know what's about to happen. And so rather than speculate about it, I just spoke to as many people as possible who knows something about it.

So you start with economists. I went to CEOs. I went to CEOs. I went to CEOs, politicians. And the tragedy of what's currently happening is that everybody's kind of looking at somebody else and saying, do you have this? You got this right. And the fact is nobody has it. And there are a lot of reasons for that. Some of it really quite sincere. I mean, economists, they make their hay by looking backward. They can only do what they do by looking at data from the past. The challenge is that AI is not exactly like the disruptive technologies we've had in the past.

So a lot of economists will refer to something like electricity, right? It's a big general purpose tech. It came along. It took 40 years to disperse throughout the country. And you had time to go into a new field. New people didn't get attracted into that field. And so what the economists will say is that this is all about speed. If AI comes into our lives and affects every industry over the course of a couple of decades, we'll probably be fine. We'll probably find ways to be more productive and wealthier. If it happens really, really quickly, watch out.

And the people who have some say over whether it's going to happen really quickly are the CEOs. What I discovered when I went to the CEOs is they really do not want to talk about this. They did last year. This year, not interested in talking about it for pretty obvious reasons, which is they don't want to be the face of we may cut a ton of jobs due to AI. And then political actors are just literally nowhere. I found a couple and I'm happy to talk about them who do have really sincere beliefs about what's to come and actually offer proposals.

For the most part, Washington has completely ignored the issue. Yeah, I mean, I do want to get to that. I first think let's just play some of those tech CEOs in the way they had been predicting what their technology would do to the workforce. You've said AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment to 10 % to 20 % in the next one to five years. Yes, that is the future. That is the future we could see if we don't become aware of this problem. Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white collar workers in the U.S.

We're going to see 10 person billion dollar companies pretty soon, like billion dollar valuations. And the thing that I in my little like group chat with my tech CEO friends, there's this there's this betting pool for the first year that there is a a one person billion dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. The thing that I struggle with, well, I struggle with two things. One that I'm going to have you explain to me as Steve Bannon's idea is a reasonable, sane-sounding idea.

That's one place I struggle. But then the other place I struggle, Josh, is fully understanding what an AI takeover actually looks like, functionally speaking. I understand software companies. I get that part of it. I don't get the rest of it. I don't get the drop-down effect. And then the second thing I don't get about that is if you wipe out all these jobs, 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 50, whatever or all of them in the future because AI is so exponentially good. Who buys anything? Who has money to buy anything? And then what props up our economy?

There's a downstream effect but there's also ALSO AN UPSTREAM EFFECT. SO I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW ANY OF THIS MAKES SENSE. KATIE, YOUR CONFUSION is shared by literally everyone. We've never been in a situation like this before. We built our civilization on labor and labor in exchange for money. And so if, and I'll get into each part of it, but basically there's no reason to believe that properly trained AI can't do a lot of the things that human labor can do. There's skepticism around it. I totally get it. The motives of the people driving this narrative are a giant hair of all right the more they say the tech is dazzling the more investment they can get as someone who has used a lot of the technology it's dazzling and it can replicate a lot of human labor it can also augment human labor if we're careful about the ways in which we do it but left unattended absolutely it will come for every industry

eventually and so when we get to steve bannon who happens to agree violently with bernie sanders they think you need to be planning for the worst case scenario they think that the united states government has enabled uh the pioneering labs to build these models has given them more access to energy more access to chips and therefore deserves a stake um and in bannon's mind that's a 50 stake he said to me i know that the right is going to go nuts about this but you have to regulate it if you don't regulate it what's regulation even for um so that's kind of where we're at is this has becoming a horseshoe issue at a moment when populism is already quite high um and so i think you'll see the political consequences of ai very clearly by november 2026 yeah and let's just i'm going to read what steve bannon's part of what steve bannon says to you he says it as steve bannon would say it so i'll just

caution with that he said let's just be blunt we're in a situation where people on the spectrum that are not quite frankly total adults you can see from their behavior they're not are making decisions for the species not for the country for the species once we hit this inflection point there's no coming back that's why it's got to be stopped and we may have to take extreme measures so again he's proposing a 50 % takeover of AI he says that he says he's work he's ready to dismiss the national security concerns and the keeping up with AI concerns for his concerns about the American worker again shared by Bernie Sanders Ed which makes strange bedfellows here are you seeing and this is this is where I think the Democrats are missing a real opportunity I've asked a number of Democrats who probably are running for 2028 what how they feel about AI and I haven't gotten a an answer from them that that comes close to I'm worried about it

and I'm worried about the American worker and we've got to regulate it. Exactly I think they're waiting to see sorry if that was waiting to see sorry if that was I think they're waiting to see I think they're waiting to see what how the narrative unfolds and I think what we're beginning to see is that everyone is now pretty much in agreement that AI actually is taking your job and I said this to you last week it's not going to take all the jobs but it's going to take some of the jobs and we know that now because a lot of these companies are laying off workers and they're literally just telling us yeah the reason we did it is because of AI so now we're reaching the next chapter in the story which is how does America feel about it and this is actually something I'm writing about right now Americans do not feel very good about this less than half of Americans have a favorable view of AI right now less than a third

of Americans we're beginning to see how Americans actually feel about AI and what we're learning and what's happening is Americans really don't like it. That is increasingly what we're beginning to see. And now we're going to see, okay, how are the politicians going to respond to this? I think increasingly over the next few months we're going to see a lot more politicians coming out and saying we need to do something about this. Ron DeSantis, by the way, is now beginning to address it. As you say, Bernie Sanders is coming out and saying we need to just stop building the data centers.

We're seeing a lot of the American people. If you look at the polling, you have to come out and say okay we need to regulate this. We have to do something about it. Let me play AOC talking about AI.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "How concerned should we be about AI? 'We've never been in a situation like this before'"?

Matt Schumer (Guest), Josh Terengel (Guest), Katie (Guest), Steve Bannon.

What is "How concerned should we be about AI? 'We've never been in a situation like this before'" about?

The discussion highlights the urgent concerns surrounding AI's rapid advancement and its potential impact on the workforce, contrasting alarmist views with more moderate perspectives that suggest there is still time for regulation and adaptation. Through insights from experts, the conversation seeks to address whether society is adequately prepared for the seismic shifts AI may bring to jobs and…

What is mentioned in this MS NOW episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Artificial Intelligence, Josh Terengel, Sean Bannon, Bernie Sanders, Matt Schumer, Ron DeSantis. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "How concerned should we be about AI? 'We've never been in a situation like this before'"?

The episode runs 10 min; the transcript is about 1,801 words in 15 timestamped sections.

More from MS NOW

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 15, 2026.