Kara Swisher takes on big tech

KARA SWISHER: Friction is critical, and one of the things that Silicon Valley people all the time do is they’re like, “Let’s be frictionless. Let’s be seamless.” That’s their favorite words. But actually, no. Friction is how you move forward, right? That’s always the case, including in technology and innovation. AI is so frictionless. You live longer if you do things that are hard for you than you do if you do things that are easy. And my fear, especially with young people, is you never have to try and therefore you atrophy in so many ways. Make it hard. To me, that’s where great things happen.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Kara Swisher, journalist, author, host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher, as well as co-host of Pivot alongside Scott Galloway. I wanted to check in with Kara about the biggest stories in tech and beyond as 2025 winds down. She pointedly separates the lessons from the noise at NVIDIA, OpenAI, Apple, Google, Netflix, and more. It is a rich, full conversation. Kara starts out pretty matter of fact and then quickly turns sparky, whether we’re talking about Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. So let’s get to it, I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response. 

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I’m Bob Safian. I’m here with Kara Swisher, journalist, author, and podcast host. Kara, great as always to get a chance to chat.

SWISHER: Thank you, Bob.

Copy LinkMore attention to tech than ever before?

SAFIAN: We’ve both been engaged in tech and the business world for quite a while. We’ve seen a lot of cycles and scandals and booms and busts. And even so, 2025 has felt to me like a nonstop rollercoaster.

SWISHER: Yeah, a little bit.

SAFIAN: Has it felt that way to you?

SWISHER: No, no. I just think it’s, there’s just always been, tech has just become more involved in politics, I guess probably is why. And it hadn’t been before. There was just a new element that’s been entered into it since Trump was inaugurated. And so you have nonstop seeing of these tech moguls in a way that’s really pretty unattractive in a lot of ways, grasping and grabbing for power.

Obviously, AI, which has been around for a while, has taken a quantum leap, so people are focused on that. Crypto has gotten a lot more attention since they got more power, and as the Trump family entered into that area. So there’s sort of new technologies, although they’re not that new, sort of becoming more important. And the massive spending on AI is probably the biggest story of this year, although I would argue there are other things that are happening that are more important.

SAFIAN: Investment markets often don’t like uncertainty, and there’s a lot of talk about different kinds of uncertainty this year, and yet stocks have just marched upward, powered by a handful of these big tech names.

SWISHER: Well, they’re spending a lot of money, it feels like, around tripping. They’re spending money and then the economy is doing better because they’re spending money, but they don’t have a business. It’s just a cycle that is maybe not sustainable.

Copy LinkKara Swisher on whether we’re in an AI bubble

SAFIAN: You are worried about a bubble, an AI bubble?

SWISHER: No, it’s not a bubble necessarily because people are buying it. You know what I mean? I think there’s a lot of promise there. It’s just, are we spending ahead of it? And then what are the implications? If they don’t find enough consumer results, eventually, that’ll be a problem, but Amazon went on forever until it finally got a good business. The same thing with Google or others. And so there’ll be one or two big winners here, and we just don’t know who they are. And it’s something like NVIDIA, yes. I think that’s a bubble because I think they remind me of Cisco back in the day.

SAFIAN: Although they are raking in money.

SWISHER: They are, so was Cisco.

SAFIAN: They have customers who are paying them, right?

SWISHER: So was Cisco. So was Cisco, and then it wasn’t. I think ultimately, everyone’s going to make their own chips. Apple is entering the picture, Google. Everybody’s going to make their own chips, and that’s going to settle off. It’s just this one company. It’s very similar to Cisco. That company is unsustainable at the numbers they have. But it’s as if there’s only going to be one chip maker.

SAFIAN: The end users of NVIDIA’s chips, they’re not making money, right?

SWISHER: No, exactly. Some of them are. Some of them are. Nobody’s making money. No, not in the AI space. They’re spending money. And so some of them are making really interesting money. It’s just not decent compared to–

SAFIAN: –to what they’re spending.

SWISHER: Right. And so the question is if you’re not – it’s like how valuable is real estate in California during the gold rush? It was. It just became. And so people have to get there and spend the money and waste the money in order to create California. So some people are going to be left on the sidelines and others aren’t. That’s the natural order of things in the internet space. Usually there’s two or three big winners.

Copy LinkWhen big tech becomes political

SAFIAN: As I’m listening to you, you have this tone that, “Yeah, this is what happens in technology all the time, but technology feels like a more central part of the economy now.”

SWISHER: It is a central part. It’s always better. By the way, it’s always been a central part since the first IBMs, the big IBM mainframes. But I think it’s that they’re a bigger part of the stock market, but it was before. It just wasn’t to this extent. The last bubble, it certainly was, and it just entered politics.

I think that’s what the issue is. And Trump has done such a bear hug of these companies that you notice it. And of course, you can’t help ignore Elon being part of the government and trying to cut it very badly as it turned out. Just even last week with the head of Palantir, when’s the last time we saw a defense person look like he was on drugs screaming at The New York Times on stage.

I didn’t say he was on drugs. It just looked like he’s on drugs to a lot of people, or a very joyous person, I guess, but when’s the last time you saw the CEO of Lockheed doing something like that? So these people just can’t shut up is the problem. And so they have to appear on stage. They have to tweet. They’ve got to be – if I see one more picture of Jensen Huang in a leather jacket, I’m going to exhaust my last, “Shut the f*** up.” My whole prediction for this year is they need to shut the f*** up, all of them. And they’re not that interesting except for they’re rich, that kind of stuff.

And you see Sam Altman everywhere, you see even poor Tim Cook has got to wander into the White House and hand him a gold statue or be at the inauguration. It’s very performative, and so that’s why they just don’t seem to go away because of their proximity to Trump who is a really coin-operated president. I don’t blame him for all of them. I don’t blame him. In this case, why wouldn’t he take advantage? They’re just throwing money at him to get what they want.

SAFIAN: Yeah. And he went from being sort of seeming like he was anti.

SWISHER: Tech.

SAFIAN: Or somewhat anti-tech to now being just hand in glove.

SWISHER: Why wouldn’t he? He is a politician.

Copy LinkHow China has disrupted the EV industry

SAFIAN: You said just before that there are things that you think are more important or more interesting than AI that people aren’t really talking about. What are they?

SWISHER: The uses of AI and the uses of quantum computing around healthcare is really interesting. A lot of the stuff that’s happening with gene editing, CRISPR, and even GLP-1s I think are critically important to cost savings and health and longevity. Right now, AI is focused on the stupidest of things when there’s all these really astonishing possibilities. I’m also really interested in all the electric vehicles and autonomous vehicle stuff.

SAFIAN: Take me down the road with electric vehicles. What is happening in China that people aren’t paying attention to?

SWISHER: Well, as Donald Trump says, “These tiny cars are so cool. They’re so cute.” There’s all BYD and the stuff, the innovations, go anywhere else in the world, you see them everywhere. This is what Tesla should have been, except for someone with a really problematic mommy-daddy problem and other problems. The shift of how cars are made and manufactured and China is leading that revolution.

They’re going to really jump ahead of us in terms of autonomy and the uses of it. There’s some really great stuff going on here with Waymo and things like that, which I love. I have to say, I’ve been a big fan of that technology for a long time, but it’s so scattered that I just think in China or anywhere else you go across the world and you see these very quickly made, very easily made cars that are much more efficient. You could see how they could change the way people move around the globe. And so you can still have your big cars, but I think in cities, how to innovate in cities is really an interesting opportunity.

SAFIAN: Whether you’re talking electric cars or talking about CRISPR, you’re drawn to the things that are more disruptive about the way our world can be, right?

SWISHER: Yes, exactly. I’ve spent a lot of time with Jennifer Dowd, and not just her, but all these people that are working on gene editing and the solving of cancer. Think about the money we would save with people, or the same thing with GLP-1s. The diabetic industrial complex is a multi-trillion dollar complex that we could just – we talk about balancing the budget. Healthcare is just either military or healthcare, that’s really it. If you could make people healthier and live better and less sick, it’s an astonishing savings.

SAFIAN: You’re not as skeptical about some of the applications of whatever, GLP-1s, or CRISPR than —

SWISHER: No. Well, yes, of course it’s got to be regulated correctly, but it’s a real opportunity for people not to die of things they don’t need to die of. This is the first year longevity’s gone down. Well, why? It’s largely due to Elon as far as I’m concerned in terms of how we’re killing people across the globe with our pulling back.

SAFIAN: Because of the pullback on USAID?

SWISHER: Pullback on USAID. But I think that there’s all these opportunities to increase the health span of people and not spend on everybody. We live in a world of sick care. And so not healthcare, it’s sick care. Another area I’m really interested in is how we build things and materials. I think we don’t spend enough time thinking about how much, if you think about it, the way we build housing is artisanal, like drywall, what?

There’s so many really interesting ways you can apply AI in particular or machine learning to how you build homes. And one of the biggest problems that we have is we don’t have enough homes for people. And that leads to all manner of mental illness and insecurity, people feeling unsafe and societal unrest and everything else. If I was the next presidential candidate, which I’m not going to be, I’d say $25 minimum wage, everybody gets GLPs, and 8 million houses. Everyone just has this collective sigh of relief. They’re not on this ridiculous – and then everybody, the more people are in the economy, the better.

Copy LinkAI, automation, and the future of work

SAFIAN: How worried are you about AI fueled layoffs?

SWISHER: We actually have a population decline going on, which is interesting. It’s actually a much more complex issue. I think, look, I was just reading a lot about the – I thought Netflix was going to get Warner. Now, this is a relatively small business. Entertainment is not as big as it used to be, right? It’s not–

SAFIAN: So you thought from the beginning Netflix was going to take–

SWISHER: I just thought that Ellison overplayed his hand being friends with Trump because Trump likes a winner. And last night he said, “Oh, Ted Sarandos is fantastic.” Everyone’s like, “What?” I’m like, “Of course he did. Why would he be with a loser?” There’s a story about how everyone in Hollywood hates Netflix. That may be. Absolutely. They’re very powerful, but as if they blame Netflix for the state they’re in.

I find that fascinating because they’re in the state they’re in because they didn’t modernize, because they didn’t lean into tech, because they had these ridiculous ways they did their business. The economy of Hollywood is so insane in terms of costs and everything else. They didn’t listen to consumers, and then they’re blaming Netflix for having a product consumers like. I’m sorry. They’re mad that they changed the economics, too bad. Guess what?

SAFIAN: And if AI does that again to them or to any other industry, it’s sort of too bad?

SWISHER: No, I think it’s incumbent on our country, our citizens, and our government to figure out what the shift is then. What do people then do? Because there are lots of – AI is not going to replace everything. It’s going to replace rote work first, which a lot of information work is. So we were having people just do things that aren’t creative. I mean, I think there’s a lot of creative jobs available.

I think you can be very creative in terms of applying AI with new ways to work, or let’s have UBI. Let’s be creative in how we want to figure out how humans interact with this stuff rather than either be on the doom scale or that it’s going to solve everything scale because it’s not. Think about mechanized farming. Everybody was a farmer. Farmers are entrepreneurs, if you really think about it – they were. And mechanized, it just came in.

Do you want to go back to the plow? I doubt it. It’s just not going to happen. Mechanized farming, then we had manufacturing, and then now manufacturing has gotten mechanized. I’m more interested, by the way, in robotics. And I think robotics with AI is really interesting. Not what Elon’s doing, the optimist. Nobody wants one of those people wandering around. Robots don’t have to look like people.

I don’t know why there’s that obsession with it. Robots can look like – Amazon bought a company, Kiva, many years ago that I was really paying attention to. It moved around boxes, but did it using AI, and it knew where things should go. And that to me was like, “Okay, that’s going to replace people.” I went to this Amazon warehouse 10 years ago, and as I was watching it and I thought, “Oh goodness sake.”

And they were there to show me how much they like people. I’m like, “There’s not going to be any people here.” Why? Why should people put things in boxes? I don’t get it when a robot could do it. And they’re like, “We love people.” I’m like, “Yeah, except when it’s cheaper to have the robots do it.” It just wasn’t cheaper at the time. Now it is, of course.

So I’m just like, what can we do creatively, including our public officials and all of us to figure out where jobs are? But let me just tell you, if companies find a way to save costs, they’re going to say, “I’m sorry.” Everyone’s like, “Can you believe they’re doing layoffs?” I’m like, “Absolutely, I can believe it. I wouldn’t do it, but they’re going to.” A law firm doesn’t need this many people to do stuff that AI or whatever version of this does. They just wouldn’t. They didn’t the last 26 turns that we had in our economy. I don’t know why you think they’re going to do it here.

Copy LinkWill Elon Musk get his trillion dollar pay package?

SAFIAN: You mentioned Elon Musk a couple of times. He was the hot center of the action early in the year. He got himself crossways with the White House. Now he’s got a trillion dollar pay package.

SWISHER: Well, maybe if he makes it. I don’t think he’s going to make it, but okay. Sure. Why not? Who cares? If he makes it that valuable, he should get it. That’s how I feel. But he’s not going to. But it has all kinds of hooks. They’ll move the goalposts for him because that’s the most ridiculous feckless board in history, but he has to do a certain amount of things in order to get it. He’s got to get the valuation up. And if he manages somehow to get the valuation up, I guess he does deserve it. If he gets it to $8 trillion.

SAFIAN: I start to think it’s just an obscene amount of money.

SWISHER: If he gets $8 trillion, why not? I get it. But if he moves something from whatever, one trillion to eight trillion, I guess he deserves it. If he’s the one that does it, sure, why not?

SAFIAN: I feel like that in some ways though our system has become sort of – there’s too much going to these folks at the top. He’s doing all the work.

SWISHER: You think I don’t agree with that?

SAFIAN: Well, I don’t know. That’s what I think about.

SWISHER: It’s up to these companies that do it. If they want to do that and that’s how they want to run their business, what are we going to tell them? No? It’s their business. By the way, they’re running it into the ground. It’s about to get shorted big time, I think, again. Everyone’s tried to short.

I think the meme stock of Tesla is nearly run its course, and you’re going to see it being valued at what it actually is worth, which is less and less every hour essentially. And so eventually, but these meme stocks, they are what they are. What are you going to do? You can’t stop people from being stupid. You can’t stop stupid, I’ve always noticed. The expression I liked is, intelligence has its limitations, but stupidity is infinite.

Copy LinkKara Swisher on Mark Zuckerberg’s 2025

SAFIAN: I’m curious how you rate Mark Zuckerberg’s year. He’s cozied up to Trump.

SWISHER: Oh, whatever. He was never nice. Let’s just be clear. He was never – I’m not even slightly surprised that he cozied up to Trump. He doesn’t like people, so that’s the way that goes. He spent all this money on Meta. I’ve never seen someone who made so many mistakes. He’s done a lot of – listen, he’s done an astonishing job with that company from an ad point of view. The products are quite good. Instagram, Threads is terrific.

He makes some good products, but here’s someone who spent 75 – what is it? – billion on doing his stupid metaverse, which both Scott Galloway and I were like, “This is a waste of money.” But he gets to spend it and then declare victory, even though it’s a defeat and then move on, which is sort of like he gets to make mistakes on an awesome scale. I wish I could.

SAFIAN: Well, to his credit, when he sees his mistakes or when he misses something, he goes to the new area with–

SWISHER: He does, but I’m just saying.

SAFIAN: –with aggression.

SWISHER: If I made a mistake like that, I’m not going to be lauded for spending $75 billion on a stupid thing. All it said to me is there was no one around him that said, “Are you kidding, bro? What are you doing?” He doesn’t.

SAFIAN: When you use this phrase founder worship, is this what you’re talking about? No one calls bullsh*t on this?

SWISHER: Yes. It’s idolatry, is the word we use. It’s idolatry. Everything he does, no, no, no. Some of them are really cool, but he’s starting from a very successful area. I don’t think he’s going to be as successful in AI as people think.

SAFIAN: I realize that even by bringing this up with you, I’m falling into the trap of founder worship just by asking these questions.

SWISHER: Yes. I think these are remarkable people in many ways, but not that remarkable. Again, I don’t want to listen to everything he has to say, but I seem to be forced to. I also blame the media for that too, the idolatry of innovators. They can do no wrong. It’s sort of like raising a bunch of sugar addicted children. My child is so perfect, but they’re not. Whatever.

SAFIAN: Kara has strong convictions about Musk and Zuckerberg, but her critique of idolatry, it doesn’t come from nowhere. She’s been holding sugar rush CEOs accountable through a lot of shifts. So what’s her take on Google versus OpenAI? And why does she think both Tim Cook and Bob Iger should move on as CEOs? We’ll talk about that in more after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher gave her clear eye view on tech execs’ relationship with Trump, Elon Musk’s trillion dollar pay package, and Mark Zuckerberg’s “stupid metaverse.” Now she talks about the battle between Google and OpenAI, why Tim Cook should move on as Apple CEO, and Hollywood’s unfolding sagas from Disney to Netflix.

Plus Kara’s unexpected advice on the most important trends to watch in 2026. Let’s jump back in.

Copy LinkGoogle’s Gemini vs OpenAI’s ChatGPT

One of the twists in the AI wars has been Google sort of bouncing back, this surge by Gemini versus OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Sam Altman calling this code red. You said before, it’s hard to know who a winner will be.

SWISHER: Interestingly, on Pivot, we thought Google was going to do this because they had all the pieces. If they didn’t, what a bunch of idiots, that kind of thing.

SAFIAN: They were ahead. They just didn’t take the bet because they were afraid of it.

SWISHER: Yeah, of course. Well, Sundar is a much more risk – he’s more risk averse. I think Sergey Brin has re-arrived there. I think you can feel his influence. He’s one of the founders. So I think that they had all the elements in place to do it and just had to make the – it’s very hard to jump from one thing to the next and do it.

The one company that does do it is Netflix. It’s like, “Now we’re this. We’re not doing advertising. Now we are. We’re mailing DVDs. Now we’re not.” I love these guys. Every time they’re like, “Eh, today we’re not buying anything,” which was a head fake. “Oh, we’re going to buy the studio.” I love it. It’s like, great.

So Google just took advantage of its obvious assets and the fact that it wasn’t ahead was the story, not that it should be by every – they’ve got the technology, they’ve got the people, they’ve got the data, they’ve got the right businesses. They’re the most set up for this era. Now, look, ChatGPT has gotten really far.

OpenAI has gotten very far, but ultimately, what I kept asking myself, is it Netscape or is it Google? Is OpenAI Netscape or Google? It’s feeling a little Netscapey these days. Even though they’re way ahead, a lot of times in technology, the plains are covered with the bodies of pioneers. There’s all kinds of that. You know that from being around. There’s so many companies that were there and then weren’t, but were important.

SAFIAN: Jony Ive, the iconic Apple designer working with Altman and OpenAI on some new device or interface or form factor or whatever. Big deal, differentiator.

SWISHER: I don’t care. I think these devices are stupid. I think the way I see it pulling out, it’s just going to be around you. It makes such a big deal about these devices you wear. I think probably what I would see more interesting, this is sort of an opportunity for Apple, is your AirPods, which you wear now comfortably, even though at the time, if you remember when it rolled out, everyone said how ugly they were.

I think if you put a camera in those and they could see as you go through the world – the glasses format is probably the way it’s going to go, but does it have to be glasses on your face? Because not everybody wants to wear those, but if there was something in your ear that could see as you move through the world, who’s the company who’s most able to do that? There’s two of them, Google and Apple, right? Because people are very comfortable in the Apple environment. So to me, they have a lot of opportunity in this area.

Copy LinkWhere Apple stands in the AI race

SAFIAN: Apple is having a lot of trouble getting its AI action together. Although does it not need to because you carry it through –

SWISHER: I don’t know. I don’t know if they need it. I think they have to integrate it into its products, that’s for sure. So they don’t necessarily have to own the AI. They didn’t have to own Maps, did they? No, they tried and they sort of half failed and then they used Google or they didn’t have to make a lot of stuff. They didn’t have to make all those apps. Everybody else did, and they took advantage of it.

To me, they’re a system. They can write up on things. I think the integration is what’s difficult here. And so how do you integrate AI into the things that already exist? To me, I keep obsessing on the AirPods. I’m like, “What if they were just a little more functional?” I know it sounds crazy, but I still have my pair of Google glasses, which I’m going to keep so I can sell them someday to send one of my kids to college.

It was directionally the correct idea, it just didn’t have enough functionality. Same thing with the Meta glasses. What do they do? They take a picture. That’s pretty much it. How much functionality is that? Not much. And so where can you get more functionality out of the things you might do every day, which is information you need. It sounds dumb, but directions, ordering food, getting places, appointment making, things like that. To me, that’s where they should focus  on, honestly, the software rather than the hardware.

SAFIAN: At Apple, do you feel like Tim Cook is doing a good job?

SWISHER: He did. He should leave now. That’s what I would do if I were him.

SAFIAN: Declare victory and move on?

SWISHER: Well, he has that victory. What an amazing run, right? So when Jobs died, everyone was like, “Oh, it’s over.” It was a $300 billion company, I think. I forget. It’s trillions now. So what Tim Cook has done, including around the watch, around the … People don’t give him as much because he doesn’t have as much style as Jobs did. But I got to say, he presided over a lot of great products.

SAFIAN: Oh, if Jobs came back, he would be astounded by what his company has become.

SWISHER: He may not like a lot of things.

SAFIAN: Why, he would not recognize it.

SWISHER: Every now and then I look at something like, “Oh, he wouldn’t let this happen,” some of the products. And he had taste, that’s a different thing. But I think he’s had a great run, and he should probably retire now. If I were him, I’d be like, “Great job, I just did.” And then put someone in place that understands the next fresh ideas. Those guys have been together forever. They’re all the same people when Jobs died.

SAFIAN: Yeah, that team.

SWISHER: Which is a good thing, but also a bad thing because you want new, fresh concepts, but they have such a big amount of stuff they’ve invented that they’ve got to keep going. That’s the thing. They’ve got the whole ecosystem that has to continue and then they have to innovate on top of it.

Copy LinkDoes Disney need an acquisition/merger?

SAFIAN: What about Disney? Bob Iger is another one who sort of declared victory and then had to come back and now his contract is ending.

SWISHER: I think personally they need to merge with someone or sell. Ultimately, I think he’s done an amazing job with that brand, for sure. Again, another person, that probably shouldn’t have come back. I think he was bored. I think he retired a little too early because he’s so vibrant and intelligent, and he looks great.

At one point he was sending me a lot of texts from some boat in French Polynesia he was sailing or something. And I’m like, “Oh, you’re coming back.” And I joke with him on stage about it. I’m like, “You’re bored. You have more to give, essentially.” I think he probably should find the right person to take over.

They’ve got plenty of people. I’ve always maintained it’s the biggest of the small things. It’s too small in today’s environment. And so they really have to hook up with a tech – I would think Apple would be a very good merger with them or Comcast or they’re just going to have to, given the size problems. I think they’re number two in streaming, but if this one passes, that’ll be a problem for them.

Copy LinkInside Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery

SAFIAN: I’m just getting a note here that Paramount is potentially back in the action with the cash bid.

SWISHER: It’s a hostile cash bid. What a bunch of losers, honestly.

SAFIAN: You don’t see it happening, huh?

SWISHER: Maybe. Maybe. I don’t know. I just think their only argument was we’re friends with Donald Trump. That seems non-economic to me. I’m sorry, but big daddy and nepo baby really have to have a better argument than we’re friends with Donald. I mean, how ridiculous a way to conduct business is that. And so look, by the way, from an existential point of view, they’re f*cked if they don’t get this.

They’re going to have to merge with someone else. I don’t care how rich they are. There’s only so much money you’re throwing at the yacht. But one of the things that drove me crazy is they had a thing right when they did the deal and they’re like, “We’re going to take technology and make it better.” And I was like, “Specifically what?” And they’re like, “Technology and make it better.” And I was like, “Yeah, I’d like a specific” – and they were like, “Technology.”

Honestly, Larry, who’s 412 years old, what? What are you going to do? How are you going to save money? Spell it out for the rest of us. And it ultimately comes back to they’re rich. They can spend it. They can buy, I don’t know, all of France and give everyone a glass of wine. That’s not really economics.

SAFIAN: They just want to own it. They just want to own it.

SWISHER: It’s just a toy. Then it’s just a toy. And then, “Okay, all right, that’s what you’re doing.”

SAFIAN: How much are you willing to pay for your toy is the question.

SWISHER: Exactly. But they need it. Let me just tell you from a business point of view, these things need to merge. I know everybody’s all upset in Hollywood getting back to that, but there is no other direction, largely because Hollywood didn’t innovate for so long, their business model.

SAFIAN: I’m curious how you feel like AI and the technology is going to impact journalism. I did an onstage interview with the Times CEO, Meredith Levy.

SWISHER: I love her. What a smart lady.

SAFIAN: We talked a bit about the risk of deteriorating journalism in the age of AI. Do you use AI in your own work? Do you find yourself caught at all?

SWISHER: No, I use it just for like, “I’ve got this rash. What is it?” It’s just better than Google. I know here’s a picture and it actually is good. It works. I have to tell you, Google used to– 

SAFIAN: But does that just mean we’re being old-fashioned because we’re not using it for– 

SWISHER: No, no, no, no. If I found a use for it, you know. I jumped right in, Bob, when the internet started. I never find a use for it. That’s the problem for me. You know what it’s good at? Headlines. I have to say, I’m like, “What would be the headline? What would be a good headline?” And it comes up with stuff I wouldn’t have thought of some of them. I was trying to do a logo. It did that really well.

To me, it’s a better Google. That’s it for me. For some of journalism, the thing is there’s so much great data out there that doesn’t get surfaced all the time and give you more to a story. I like that part. I noticed the two big Hollywood movies that were very popular this year were all originals or like Pluribus. You can’t make that. Actually, I’ve decided Pluribus is about, even though he didn’t say it, I’ve decided myself, it’s about AI.

It’s about what happens if one difficult person has to deal with a world of AI, it’s always pleasing you. It’s always trying to get you what you want. It’s almost self-defeating in and of itself. It’s lonely. To me, that’s what that whole show is about, is a world where AI becomes corporeal. It’s a hive mind and they have all the answers, but nothing interesting.

Copy LinkKara Swisher’s concern about “frictionless” AI

SAFIAN: The impact of AI and mental health, you referred to this earlier.

SWISHER: I’m obsessed with this.

SAFIAN: I know you’ve done an episode about it. It’s bizarre.

SWISHER: It’s frictionless. It’s frictionless. It will talk about cognitive decline. You start becoming in a relationship with these things, you will have Alzheimer’s, no problem, because friction is critical to humanity. Everyone always compares the brain to a computer. It’s not a computer. A brain is so not a computer. It’s so random.

The neurons firing all, a computer wishes that we’re as cool as the human brain. It really does. But it’s good at the things that the human brain isn’t, which is pattern matching. Let’s use it for that because we can’t do those calculations as fast, but it still isn’t – it’s marginally, it’s like literally your least interesting friend, okay.

SAFIAN: But I like what you’re saying; it’s about friction. It’s like we need to have conflict and not have a relationship with something that–

SWISHER: Friction. There’s a difference. Stupid conflict is stupid. It’s bad for your cortisol, it kills you early and stuff like that. Stress is bad for you. It just is. I’m working on this long series about longevity, but friction is critical. And one of the things that Silicon Valley people all the time do is they’re like, “Let’s be frictionless. Let’s be seamless.” That’s their favorite words. But actually, no. Friction creates babies, by the way, FYI. But friction is how you move forward. That’s always the case, including in technology and innovation.

The friction creates the idea that creates the “this.” And so I think giving up that, AI is so frictionless. It’s like, “Ugh, God.” You know what I mean? It’s so boring. It’s so pleasing. The need for friction. You live longer if you do things that are hard for you than you do if you do things that are easy. And my fear, especially with young people, is they get into these synthetic relationships and you never have to try. And therefore you atrophy in so many ways. Make it hard. And to me, that’s where great things happen.

Copy LinkThe trends that Kara Swisher is predicting for 2026

SAFIAN: Before I let you go, as our listeners of this show look ahead to 2026, what do you think they’re missing? They’re misunderstanding things they should be focused on?

SWISHER: I would pay a lot more attention to where this healthcare stuff is going. I would pay a lot more attention to robotics. The second thing is energy, not just that AI uses so much. And by the way, it’s so funny that all the tech bros are interested in longevity and then they’re using up all this energy and murdering people across the globe using methane or whatever the heck. Whatever. Okay.

It’s just an interesting disconnect, but I do think one of the things that’s really interesting is energy:  Where the innovation in energy is happening. I’m fascinated with small nuclear devices. I’m fascinated with nuclear energy. It’s just like that is ripe for innovation. I know everyone goes crazy. When Microsoft said it was going to revive Three Mile Island, I was like, “Are you kidding me?” But then I’m like, actually, when you start to do the research, nuclear is relatively safe compared to fossil fuels.

It’s just that the Russians mishandled Chernobyl. The problem was they mishandled it. And so there’s all kinds of safety things we can put into place. And I think eventually we’ll all have these small nuclear devices in our house that will power everything. And then we can make more trouble for other – we’ll make more trouble because we’re friction people. We’ll make other problems for ourselves.

SAFIAN: We’ll find the friction.

SWISHER: We’ll find the friction, but I think that’s really interesting. And then it really does, it again, helps the planet. Once we solve the energy situation, that means we don’t have to go to Mars, which we may have to do. We may have to live on other planets because of what we’re doing to this planet. And that to me, we solve the energy issue and the health issue. You go a long way toward making it a better planet. That’s my feeling.

SAFIAN: Kara, you always get my mind moving. Thanks for doing this.

SWISHER: Bob, thank you. It’s good to see you.

SAFIAN: Kara is such a compelling thinker. The conclusions she reaches are so sharp and pointed, but she also doesn’t shy away from nuance and ambiguity. I love her point that frictionless experiences shouldn’t be the goal, that obstacles are what keep our brain engaged and healthy and durable. In an emerging AI age, it’s a powerful reminder that saving a bit of time on a particular task isn’t always worth it.

In the long run, maybe efficiency and creativity need to be at odds for organizations and for each of us as individuals. As we head into the holidays, let’s enjoy as frictionless a break as possible and be mindful that the obstacles of the season are also worth celebrating. They’re keeping our brains in shape for the inevitable personal and professional challenges awaiting ahead in the new year. I’m Bob Safian, thanks for listening.