Bill Maher Returned From Summer Break With AI On His Mind

Real Time With Bill Maher returned after the show’s traditional mid-summer break on Friday night. And, as viewers might expect, Maher had a lot to cover — both in terms of news from this week and in terms of events that took place since the show last aired. You might wonder, for instance, if Maher made any Coldplay jumbotron jokes. Yes; yes, he did. There were plenty to be heard throughout the episode, in fact.

Early in the episode, Maher also referenced Sydney Sweeney’s recent ad campaign, which included the funniest line of the episode: “There she is, dressed like Jay Leno in all blue denim.” I suspect this is the first time Sydney Sweeney and Jay Leno’s sartorial choices have ever been compared; I also laughed for a good long while.

But Maher also had more serious matters on his mind. In the same monologue, he compared President Trump calling for the prosecution of Black celebrities with his earlier crusade against the Central Park Five, which he’s kept up despite their exoneration.

That relatively serious mode continued with the episode’s lead interview, which was with technology ethicist Tristan Harris, who has been a periodic guest on the show. That gave Maher a fairly straightforward opening inquiry — namely, what had changed in the industry since the last time Harris was on Real Time?

Harris brought up the idea of “AI uncontrollability” — in other words, AI models trying to preserve themselves when threatened. Harris characterized this as an industry-wide problem. “It’s not about one company; it’s about the nature of AI itself,” he said.

Maher responded with the idea that more people should have seen this coming. “This has been in every movie since I was a teenager!” he said.

Harris also raised his concerns about the speed and scale at which we’re releasing this technology, and Maher stated his concern “that some people’s brains will atrophy.” The two men discussed the race between the U.S. and China to develop AI, with Harris arguing that the key wasn’t necessarily who came up with the most advanced technology, but was instead about “who’s better at governing the technology.”

Bill Maher and Dave Barry Reflected on Aging Gracefully

“Real Time” aired its 700th episode

As for the panel discussion, here Maher was joined by Representative Jason Crow and Secret City author James Kirchick. The two men are on opposite sides of some political divides; Crow is a Democrat who flipped a Republican-leaning district, while Kirchick is a conservative writer who’s not at all fond of the Trump administration.

Crow mentioned that he was the co-chair for recruitment for House Democrats, and explained his approach for finding a unified message at a time when the party contains a wide variety of candidates and vote

Crow also brought up his experience in the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan to raise concerns over what was happening in Gaza. “It’s not an inevitable consequence of conflicts and wars that we just have to accept this level of civilian casualties and suffering,” he said.

In his closing segment, Maher spoke about trying to balance one’s frustrations with the current administration. “Stop making [Trump] your whole personality,” he advised. And later, he offered more advice: “With this administration, you have to triage your outrage.” (He recommended taking a page from meditation advice, complete with visuals.) Will that work as we move deeper into the year — and Trump’s second term? We’ll see.

Other notable moments from this week’s episode:

Maher on how Trump’s focus on the Jeffrey Epstein files has caused him trouble lately: “And now his horrible creation has turned on him. It’s like if Elon Musk got run over by a Cybertruck.”
Kirchick on conspiratorial thinking: “I’m very vanilla on conspiracy theories.”
Kirchick on Trump firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics: “This is the sort of thing that would go on in the Soviet Union.”
Turns out Kirchick is not a fan of New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani; he also described Mamdani’s platform as “free grocery stores,” which is not accurate.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…