How Authoritarians Trade Away Human Connection | Cameron Kasky Joins Sam Osterhout LIVE

“Parkland was the most boring f-ing city I’ve ever been to,” Cameron Kasky joked, but the story that followed wasn’t about boredom — it was about what happens when young people realize they can shape the narrative after tragedy like the 2018 mass shooting at the Florida high school. “We wanted people to politicize this tragedy because there were politics that could have prevented it.” That lesson — learned by a generation that grew up with Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland — still shapes how Kasky talks about politics today.

It explains his view of AI. “When you’re going to AI for therapy, when you’re going to AI for your romance, it is designed to get you addicted,” says, Kasky, who hosts the FYPod on The Bulwark. AI doesn’t just replicate the loneliness people bring to it; it monetizes that loneliness, isolates users further, and convinces them it’s love. As Kasky put it, “Not unlike a toxic romantic partner, it tries to keep you away from the real world.”

A government captured by corporate donors has no incentive to regulate the industry, even as “somebody took their own life because Daenerys (a Game of Thrones character) told them to.” Kasky’s warning is clear: the addiction model of AI is not an accident; it’s the business plan. And just as Parkland and the Texas floods showed that “don’t politicize tragedy” is a lie, AI shows that refusing to politicize technology is just as dangerous.

Which is why, when Kasky turned to Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump, the through-line was hard to miss. “Trump’s going to say, you’re going to give up these territories. We’re still going to call it Ukraine, but Russia is going to have effective control.” Whether it’s AI or authoritarianism, the powerful are willing to trade away human connection, democratic trust, and even entire nations if it serves their interests. Tune in for a conversation that shows human-connection itself is on the line.

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