Bill Maher Says AI Is A Much Bigger Threat Than TikTok

Last night on HBO‘s Real Time with Bill Maher, the looming TikTok ban was on the table for discussion, but the host doesn’t think it’s what Congress should be worried about.

The U.S. House passed a bill this week that would ban the app if Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell its controlling stake within six months. It’s unclear if the Senate will pass the bill at this point.

Maher quipped, “China, you know what, you can manufacture everything else that we use, but keeping our kids stupid, that’s our job.”

When speaking with his panel guests, which included Republican Representative Nancy Mace and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, Maher expressed his belief that the country has much bigger digital problems to worry about than TikTok.

“Explain to me why the people who are lining up against the bill and against getting it signed, you know, are saying, ‘No, we can keep TikTok Chinese.’ What is the common ground there?” Maher asked.

“The common ground is the First Amendment in free speech,” responded Khanna. “I mean, it shows how out of touch Congress is that of all the issues in the country, the thing we can get done in three days is ban TikTok. That is the issue?”

Khanna suggests that Congress should instead consider enacting a “data privacy law.”

Although Maher acknowledged that he too is a “free speech person,” he went on to say that artificial intelligence is a much more serious threat and is what Congress should really be focusing on.

“I’m so much more concerned about AI,” said Maher. “I mean, I heard you [Khanna] say this week that you think the first trillionaire in this country is going to be an AI entrepreneur. That to me is scarier than any of this, the idea of a trillionaire and also coming from AI. And by the way, the U.S. State Department said this week, worst case scenario, it [AI] poses an extinction-level threat to the human species.”

Maher continued, “You know, we see all these glitches in it and it doesn’t pause us at all. It’s like an arms race and we’re the guinea pigs. And shouldn’t the tech bros have been made to work out the bugs before they unleashed it on humanity? A little bit?”

One of the main reasons behind the writers‘ and actors’ strikes last year was the need for new rules surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in entertainment.