Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20170708

Manipulation, there is some propaganda, there is a lot of repression, but it is also a genuine perception that putin has made the country more stable. Glor we continue with steven cook of the council of Foreign Relations and talk about the recent saudi arabianled block aid of qatar and what it means for the middle east and the u. S. The qatarys are going to be isolated from the region. There is too much mistrust now among the leaders of these countries for them to repair the relationship in a way where there is constructive cooperation, common interests that the saudis and the emiratis will be willing to work with the qatarys, the egyptian, and vice versaa. Glor conclude with personal technology comist Walt Mossberg. He talked to charlie about hits recent retirement and career in journalism. I feel very comfortable wit. I really think of it and ease planned when i announced it as a reinvention. Thats not a rhetorical dodge. Every so often, you have to reinvent yourself and, so, when i say im retiring, it means im not going to have a regular job but im not going to stop doing things. Glor russia, qatar and a conversation with Walt Mossberg, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Glor good evening, im jeff glor filling in for charlie rose who is traveling. All next week the pps newshour will air a series called inside putins russia, it is the product of reporting by journalist Nick Schifrin and producer zach fannin. They recently traveled to a dozen russian cities in an attempt to better understand the country. The sixpart series will explore everything from the bilateral relationship with the u. S. To widespread propaganda and the fate of putins enemies. The First Episode of inside putins russia deals with the russian identity and the National Perception and popularity of president putin. Heres a look. The idea that the state is more important than the people is actually not new. Russians have long had a collective identity. For us, the man is collective concept. We consider ourselves to be the part of the whole. So to be russian means to share the same culture and historic identity. Glor for years tv fixture and fire brand Alexander Dugan inspired the ideology. He says russias collective identity comes from patriotism, collective power and respect for the ruler. Putin taps into all three. It is organic, not artificial. Empire or state is not something additional or artificial because it is our breath, our skin, our organic way of life. Todays kremlin uses that patriotism to try to unit the population and convince them only a powerful state can protect them from enemies. Enemy number one, the u. S. America is on the brink of a revolution. Dugan and the kremlin accused the u. S. Of humiliating russia by expanding n. A. T. O. To russias borders and supporting revolutions in former soviet states and satellites. Dugan advocates fighting back by attacking the u. S. With asmog alertic war. You talk ability geopolitical disorder, dissident movements, extremism, racist, sectarian groups. Exactly as you do. Its exactly what you do. You are supporting this group, supporting any kind of a nationalist including nationalist russias that are against putin. Sit a mirror of what you are doing. You are frightened so much because you are doing the same thing against us. Glor Nick Schifrin joins us. Pleased to welcome him to the program. Thank you very much. Glor the first part you talk about in the series is something thats important that not a lieutenant of people hear and see and that is how russian sees Vladimir Putin versus how Many Americans see Vladimir Putin. Yeah, and i think this goes to why russians, when the u. S. Attacks russia, sees it as an attack on their identity, and i think thats really important. Over the last 15 or so years, putin has brought relative stability to russia. Anybody old enough to remember the 90s will remember the political and economic chaos of that, so that is the first step. The second step is recreating russian traditions like the Orthodox Church, presoviet traditions like the kosics into a level of pride in shared religion and shared traditions, and thats tapped into a collective identity that russias long had, and that means that the pride that russians feel, the patriotism that russians feel today, yes, there is some manipulation, there is some propaganda, theres a lot of repression, but it is also a genuine perception that putin has made the country more stable, has made it better, russias able to project power and that means that putins popularity is genuine. Its nostalgia. Nostalgia, imperial grandeur, some would call it imperial dpiewngs dliewngs tapping into russias imperial history. But its also genuine and legitimate in the sense you have russian traditions, russian religion, the Orthodox Church and the real sense of the ability to project power. That is fundamental to the russian identity and putins brought that back aivment combination of the old and new. What new things is he doing to maintain that level of support which is overwhelming. It is, its not quite 90 like after crimea, but its still 60 or 70 , and things like crimea just a few years ago, things like syria are able to convince russians that putin is strong, hes respected on the international stage, and he can project russian power. A lot of that comes from russian propaganda, of course. You get just an echo of the points on russian tv from some of these anchors saying putin is so strong and everyone is so weak, so, partially, it is that. But they do see russia has a huge role to play in both the region and the middle east and russians think thats a good thing. Glor the Russian Television not just in russia but also americans get a bit of that, too. Absolutely. There are two parts of. This one is the Propaganda Machine inside russia and its gone through different messages and changes but the consistency is this, we have to rally around russia and that there are lots of enemies and, right now, the message is, you know, russia may not be great, but the west isnt great either and you should support us, you should support the government because you need strength right now. The second part of that is the externally focused stuff. R. T. , sputnik. And the head of r. T. , the editorinchief, but also the most popular anchor this russia admits that information is a weapon and theyve aimed it at russias enemies and that means trying to destabilize the west through these propaganda campaigns and frankly the propaganda campaigns went far into the United States and President Trump certainly echoes some of those propaganda points. Glor information and cyber warfare have been weaponized. One in the same. The russians dont see it differently. Early last year there was a fake story about the socalled rape of a germanrussian girl. It was fake. The Russian Media knew it was fake, the Russian Foreign ministry knew it was fake yet foreign minister lavrov used it against german chancellor angela merkel. So you have a sense this is all combined, you can use all the tools to weaken your enemies. Glor there is chick suffering in russia now. I wonder how the Putin Administration fends off any discussion of that or any negligentive discussion of that. This is where you see a generational divide, at least this is what were seeing especially in the last few months. There are a lot of people who say the 90s were worse and, yeah, maybe the economy is not so great, but putin has brought stability. You have a Younger Generation that says, wait a minute, why are there potholes on the road if were in ukraine and crimea and syria, why isnt my life better . I dont remember the 90s because im not old enough to remember and thats what Alexei Navalny the lead opposition figure has tapped into. He says, look, these people are, in his words, crooks and thieves and taking your money and the Younger Generation agrees. They say, yes, we are not as rich as we should be. The older generation are holding on to ideas of russian identity. Glor where is the opposition and is it growing . It is growing in the sense that twothirds of the country now believes corruption is the number one problem, so that is a see change. That is not something we would have gotten six or nine months ago. Alexei navalny is a 41yearold prominent politician. A lot of people who are young really like him. He goes to these events and takes selfies with literally hundreds of people. He speaks their language. There is probably a ceiling to his popularity and that is partially generational and partially because of urban, liberal, highereducated russians will be listening to him whereas the other part of the country will be listening to the propaganda on the evening. But his growing popularity, the kremlin takes him very seriously, and hes beginning to change peoples perceptions. Glor how much does Vladimir Putin dictate how popular he may become . Marsha has a good sense on whether putin is this master manipulator. She says, you know, there are emanations that come from the kremlin, that come from the top. Is almost shakespearean. Oh, who can rid me of this person . I need to walk out of the room, then the loyal lieutenants kind of figure it out. How much control putin has in everything, were just guessing, but the system is clearly very much a product of what he and the kremlin and his loyal lieutenants want and, right now, there is a lot of efforts to try and discredit navalny and one of them is president putin never mentions his name, tries not to take him seriously at all, even though the police take it seriously, even though the oligarchs connected to putin attack navalny and take it seriously, the structures of the state are taking it seriously even know the president pretends hes not. Glor Vladimir Putin has been battling terrorism inside his own country ever since he assumed office in 99. I know you did reporting on that. What is the state of what is happening right now . Well, youve got a few examples of that. One is, i think ideologically for russia, that is exactly what they want us, whether western reporters or the administration glor the same thing. That is exactly what they want. This is a grand bargain whether the Southwest Corner of syria, expands to the middle east, everywhere, this is a civilization battle, use language President Trump used the other day to say we need to come together. More locally, theyve also had to deal with local incidents in st. Petersburg and moscow before that of terrorism, and down south where we went to dagestan, one of the republics on russias southern border, the insurgency is not that hot there. Near chech an chechnya where tht two wars, not that violent now, but there is a huge amount of police and Security Services presence, a lot of what critics call brutal tactics, and that has led to an exodus of some of these fight, from dagestan and chechnya to i. S. I. S. Weve seen these over the last couple of years, and russia is doing everything it can to make sure those people do not come back, and a lot of them tell us that, right before the 2014 olympics, actually russian Security Services facilitated some of those peoples travel to syria in order to get them out of russia. So dagestan is safer, chechnya is safer. Whether syria and iraq are safer is another question. Glor where does Vladimir Putin want the people in the u. S. To believe he is on i. S. I. S. Right now . I actually think it is relatively genuine when he says that we are fighting a civilizational war, and i. S. I. S. Is the enemy. Now, the technicalities of that in syria are another question. There are a lot of people and a lot of people in this administration who followed this directly, the u. S. Administration, who say russian jets are not attacking i. S. I. S. Russian jets are attacking whoever russias enemy is that day and propping up the assad regime. But, overall, you know, russia presents itself as an enemy to i. S. I. S. And is trying to align itself with the u. S. On that very basis. Glor what do people in russia think about donald trump . Theyre disappointed. Glor in what way . They heard a candidate who said, we wont meddle in syria or elsewhere, we wont meddle in other peoples backyards, who said i love putin, he says nice things about me, im going to say nice things about him. And then i think the bombing of syria after the chemical weapons attack convinced russians that trump, to quote the foreign ministerry spokeswoman, you know, the swamp has drained trump, basically, meaning trump is just another republican president and there is disappointment he hasnt been able to deliver on what he or at least what the candidate trump, the presentation of on russian tv, seemed to suggest, which was a much better bilateral relationship, and that obviously has not happened. I mean, most russia watchers say this is one of the most tense moments between the two countries in decades. Glor fascinating series for pbs newshour. Nick schifrin, inside putins russia airs all next week. Nick, thank you so much. Thank you. Glor the Trump Administration grapples with north korea, there is also trouble brewing between some of americas allies half a world away. A saudiled blockade of the strategically important nation of qatar is entering its second month. Saudi arabiaia, egypt, bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates accused of qatar of supporting terror groups. This week qatar rejected a long list of demands that included cutting ties to the muslim brotherhood, distancing itself from iran and closing aljazeera, the statesponsored broadcaster. Joining me from washington is steven cook, of the council of Foreign Relations. He is the author of false dawn protest, democracy, and violence in the new middle east. Steven, good to see you. A lot of this comes down to what the saudis and the emiratis say is support for terrorism, but thats hard to define, isnt it . It is pardon to define. I think it is hard to define. I think its clear, however, that the qatarys have worked with, coordinated, given safe haven to groups that have engaged in terrorist activity and violence around the region, and it is one of the chief complaints to have the saudis and emiratis. But of course the saudis dont have a particularly good track record on this issue either. So seems there is more going on here than just the question of the qataris position to hamas or the taliban or al quaidarelated groups in syria. Glor if were talking about the genesis of this, the saudis and emiratis say its terrorism but this has been simmering for quite some time. Thats absolutely right. You have to look at this crisis in a broader Historical Context in which these three countries and the ruling families of these three countries do not see eye to eye on things. In 1995, the saudis emiratis and other partners tried to engineer a coup that would overthrow the current emirs father and install a government more friendly to the saudis and emiratis and be a part of an alignment within the Gulf Cooperation Council, this organization that encompasses all these gulf states, in which the qatarys would essentially toe the saudi line. The qataris wanted to pursue a more independent foreign policy. Glor what is Rex Tillerson trying to do . Tillerson is trying to manage the conflict. Hes working with the kuwaitis who positioned themselves as the gulf mediator. Qatar hosts the largest u. S. Military base in the region, 11,000 personnel there, the place from which the United States runs the campaign against the islamic state, runs the war against iraq and afghanistan. Yet the emiratis, saudis, bahrainis and egyptians are partners of the United States, so tillerson is looking for something within those 13 demands that the qataris have said are nonnegotiable and saudis and emiratis said are nonnegotiable that he can work. With my sense is theyre trying to figure out between the kuwaitis and secretary of state tillerson, parts of the demands the qataris can work, with that can be tillersons demands, u. S. Conditions that all the parties can agree to, but, thus far, no one has been willing to budge. The qataris rejected. They said were willing to talk about some of these things but not till you lift the block aid, we wont negotiate under the block aid, and the saudis emiratis, egyptians and bahrainis have said these are nonnegotiable items, you have rejected these demands, they are now void and we will pursue other policies to isolate qatar in the region and beyond. Glor there is a big and odd laundry list of demands. Some would seem like nonstarters. When you look at them, eight are complete nonstarters, and the other five are nonstarters from the perspective of the qataris. Shutting down aljazeera is something the qataris wouldnt possibly do. Aljazeera is a source of the countrys influence not just in the region but around the world. To pay compensation to victims of things that the qataris to whom . What is the evidence these other countries bring to the table . To end its ties with iran, well, it turns out these other countries also have ties to iran. For all the business that the qataris have done with the iranians, the iranians with whom they share one of the Worlds Largest domes of gas. Dubai banks are also doing a lot of business with the iranians. Thats not to defend the qataris, its just to point out some of these demands from the qatari perspective are nonnegotiable and rife with hypocrisy. Glor can you talk a little bit about the g. C. C. . You mentioned iran as it relates to originally iran and iraq and the war and how that has developed in the gulf . The g. C. C. Was founded in the early 1980s as the behest of the United States in the aftermath of the iranian revolution, and this was a way in which the United States could coordinate security in the region. Of course, most of the security coordination has been at the bilateral level but it gave a structure for the United States to work with all of these different countries. It has been a difficult group. They have not been willing to coordinate security amongst themselves. Until quite recently, they have preferred to work bilaterally with the United States, but at least at one level there was a level of coordination and a way in which the United States and the british and other western allies to work with the gulf as a whole. Recently, the saudis, the emiratis, to some extent the bahrainis have started to coordinate more on the military front, and you see that in their mission in yemen, which hasnt gone very well, but, nevertheless, they point to as a maturation of the g. C. C. And the willingness of some of the states within the Gulf Cooperation Council to Work Together militarily. Glor as it relates to the Gulf Cooperation Council how much of this blockade were the saidies emboldened by the visit from the president . If you talk to officials in the gulf, they say this is something that has been brewing for quite some time. They decided to take the action when they did because they did not want to do it before President Trump visited saudi arabia. They felt that they had to give him the opportunity to come and say what he had to say in riyadh in late may, things that the emiratis and the saudis liked very much, but, once that was over, they decided that, from their perspective, there are an accumulation of things that the qataris had done, that the qataris had not adhered to a 2014 agreement that they had struck with them to concerning the muslim brotherhood, aljazeera and other issues and, thus, it was time to take this step. Of course, they were very plead very pleased with what President Trump said in riyadh and they do feel they have the president s support. If you look at the readouts of phone calls nat the president has had with the crown prince of abu dhabi who is influential in this, or with the egyptian president i didn, he says the t supports it but countering terrorism should be the first priority, that suggests to to the people in the region that actually the president is more supportive of the saudi emirati side in this conflict than the qatari side. Glor are the saudis and emiratis overestimating how much the United States is willing to do to put pressure on qatar given first and foremost the importance of the u. S. Base in qatar . I think the saudis and emiratis miscalculated. I think they believed the qataris would cave relatively quickly and not have options, and the qataris proved, first of all, they have vast resources. This is the wealthiest country on the per capita basis in the world. They have vast resources at their disposal. There is the fact of the air base which is incredibly important to the pentagon and American Military operations around the region, and theyve demonstrated they have some options. The turkish government moved very quickly to express its support for the qataris, to indicate that it believed that the demands on qatar were unjust and, importantly, established an air bridge from turkey to qatar and now in qatari supermarkets there are turkish dairy products. The iranians have taken advantage of this situation and early on flew about 500 tons of food into there. Its not clear the qataris and iranianscover the same relationship the qataris and the turks do, but the qataris believe they can extend the blockade and look at it as an existential threat early on. They said this is an effort to overthrow the qatari government and undermine the states sovereignty. Glor and qatar wants to manage iran because they share Energy Reserves with iran . That certainly is a part of it. The dome of gas qatar is the Third Largest producerexporter of liquefied natural gas in the world, and they share this huge dome of gas with the iranians. So just by definition, they have to seek cooperation there. They also recognize that these are very, very small countries on the arab side of the gulf and that iran is a very large country with a long history, and that rolling it back, defeating it in some way, is practically impossible for these countries so that better to work with the iranians, try to find areas of cooperation with the iranians. But of course, the qataris are on opposite sides from iran on a variety of issues, notably syria, where the qataris have coordinated and allegedly provided support for extremist groups fights the assad regime. Glor how much of this, steven, is the new crown prince in saudi arabia asking for a reset here . Well, certainly king salmans son who recently moved up from deputy crown prince to down prince is seeking a more active saudi role in the region. You see that in yemen, in saudi arabias intervention in yemen in 2015, you see it in a more assertive policy with regard to iran, and you see it with a significantly less deference to american wishes and interests. You saw it certainly at the end of the obama administration. So whereas, previously, saudi leaders have wanted to establish consensus in the region first, work with the United States, rely on the United States, bin salman clearly sees a leadership role for saudi arabia in the region. It strikes i think a lot of people that as difficult as the relationship qatar is trying to manage are right now, as long as they have that u. S. Air base there, they have, no pun intended, the trump card. I think thats true and, when this began a little more than a month ago, it was clear that they were going to use that cart. That base is important to the United States, its clear that the qataris worried about their neighbors, their sovereignty, who the rulers are, see the base as an ultimate guarantor of their sovereignty. The pentagon has long wanted a second runway at the air base and, guess what . The qataris are building a second runway for the pentagon. Glor steven, how does this end . Well, i think this is before we talk about how it ends, i think its going to go on for a longer period than anybody anticipated. The emiratis are already signaling theyre willing to turn their back on the qataris and see the qataris go their own way and out of the g. C. C. That may be in fact one ending of this that the qataris go their own way and find their way with a different set of relationships around the world, one that certainly includes the United States, turkey, perhaps a different kind of relationship with iran. There are othe other a othethero are opposed to what qatar is doing, so its possible. The other possible ending is some sort of negotiated solution where secretary of state tillerson produces a list of american demands or conditions all parties need to agree to. Regardless whether that happens or not, the qataris are going to be isolated from the region. There is too much mistrust now among the leaders of these countries for them to repair the relationship in a way where there is constructive cooperation, common interests that the saudis and emiratis will be willing to work with the qataris, the egyptians will be willing to work with them, vice versaa. American policymakers will have to get used to having an ally called qatar thats essentially isolated from the surrounding region. Given the size of the air base, given the commitments that the saudis said they would not do anything to disrupt the operations of the air base is something the u. S. Can manage, but, at the same time, a weakened g. C. C. Is a problem for the nays because it provides all kinds of opportunities for the iranians. Glor part of the middle east is broken and however it looks like at the end, its not going to look like the same as it did before. Thats right. Glor steven cook from the council of Foreign Relations also author of false dawn protest, democracy, and violence in the new middle east. Steven, appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Rose Walt Mossberg is here, the influential personal Technology Columnist retired this month. He first pitched his column to the wall street journal in 1991 predicting the rise of personal computing. Mossberg was an early advocate for nontechies and criticized products that were overly complex. His tech reviews were often up sparing and at times prompted companies to modify their designs. He came to be widely revered by the Tech Community interviewing titans like steve jobs, gill bates and elon musk. Wired magazine called him the kingmaker. Pleased to have him back at the table. Welcome. Glad to be here. Rose retired. Etired. Rose when you the hear that word, does it fit . Well, depends who youre talking about. I feel very comfortable with it. I really think of it, and i explained this when i announced it, as a reinvention, and thats not a rhetorical dodge. I think every so often you have to reinvent yourself. So when i say im retiring, it means im not going to have a remember regular job, but im not going to stop doing things. Im going to do different things. Glor lets do a little bit of the history. You have been a frequent guest on the show and often have given us direction as to where technology is going. 1991 you go to the wall street journal and say . I went to norm peri pearl st, managing director of the wall street journal, whos gone on to do other wonderful things, and at the time i had a great job, i was the National Security reporter based out of washington covering the sorveght state and the Intelligence Community when we were about to win the cold war and i said, i dont want to do this anymore. I want to write a weekly column about computers and technology. And the managing editor thought that was a great idea, particularly when i explained what you said, that i wanted to champion average people and be critical of the industry. But he let me dote, but i rater found out there was a big fight in the journal about, a, whether to let somebody express such strong opinions in the paper, particularly about potential advertisers, and, b, whether technology was important enough to justify a column. Glor i. Rose i loved your first line. Personal computers are just so hard to use, and it isnt your fault. You came down on the side of the user earl lier. Right. And that line was meant to both criticize the industry and provide guilt relief because, if you think back to those days, people, if they couldnt get the thing to work, they blame themselves instead of blaming, you know, the company that made it. Whereas if your refrigerator broke, you didnt think, well, i tid something wrong, you thought kenmore did something wrong. But if you couldnt boot up your windows pc, you didnt blame microsoft, you thought you were dumb. So the first line were very deliberate. Rose i assume you asked steve about this or his successors why they never give instructions with their products. Its because they believe they are intuitive and they probably overestimate that on some of their products, some not so much, but some yes. Sometimes they give a little tiny brochure with a few little draw your attention of what to do, but, youre right, they the instruction manual was something they thought if you needed it, there was something wrong. Glor after personal computers what was it you think drove the remarkable transformation of the way we live our lives . Well, i think there have been three big there have been a million wonderful, interesting products and a lot of jumping, but there have been three big things. First was the personal computer which, by the time i started writing about it, was around but hadnt been democratizd. So the personal computer. The second thing, the worldwide web, which was the mid 90s, 94, 95, was when most people began to have access to it. Rose were talking about a little over 20 years. Yeah, this whole thing, charlie, starting with the first mainstream computers is 40 years, thats it. Compare it to the railroads, compare it to the auto industry, the oil industry, the textile rose the most transformative sector of our economy. Is 40 years old. And the internet part, the worldwide web part is about 20 years old. That was the second big thing. And then the third big thing was mobile starting with the iphone in 2007, which you and i have talked about before on this show, which i think has put a computer in the pocket of and a really powerful computer, far more powerful than the old desktops in your pocket and, then, of course, android following on so that billion, 3 billion people in the world have these things now. Rose and we want to talk about Artificial Intelligence specifically, machine learning. Augmented reality. Rose all those kinds of things where the futures apps and how predominant apps are in our life. But think about the people you have known, and this industry is, you know, famous for some really high profile people. Right. Rose well known, often on the cover of magazines, steve jobs, bill gates, andy grove, and you could go on and on. Ive known all three of those guys andout snores larry page. Sergei brin,. Rose jeff bazos, probably viewed as the most competent his man in the world. Warren buffth did a shout out to jeff basically saying theres nobody who has done what he has done, to build two Great Companies under one roof, Amazon Enterprise Services and the retail. Yeah. Rose and prime. And not to mention on the side saving the washington post. It reminds me a little built of steve jobs in the sense that what people dont always credit him with is he saved founded apple, then came back and saved it. Then he was running pixar with kind of his left hand or right hand, and i once said to him, and, remember, pixar had run off a string of the biggest hits in hollywood for a period of some years there, and won all these oscars and everything, and i said, when do you have time to run pixar . He says, oh, i do that on friday. And he revolutionized retail. I mean, their stores are highly profitable and different than when you used to no into a computer store. Rose i think profit per square foot are some of the most Profitable Stores in the world. I think may be the most profitable. Rose yeah. If we go on fifth avenue, it takes up more square foot than i think tiffanys, and he was hugely involved in that. Rose was he the most interesting for you of all of them . He and bill tie in my find. Theyre super different but interesting. Jeff reminds me of steve because hes doing retail, hes doing space. Rose hes doing hollywood. Hes doing hollywood with transparent and other things hes making for amazon prime. He owns the washington post. Hes an extremely active, curious person. Rose probably will be the richest person in the world . Yeah, that doesnt matter very much to me. Rose im not saying it matters, im just saying its a fact. Yeah, he probably will be. When i first we want into bill gates office and he was at the time the richest person in the world and still is probably today, i realized i was dressed better than he was and im not a good dresser. I dont even wear a jacket unless im going on your show. You know, i just thought if he can dress this way, so can i. Rose still he left it to do even greater things. He will be remembered more for what he was doing in Global Health than creating microsoft. I think so, and i know you know him well. We just had him on our big conference, the one that finished a year ago, he and melinda came, and we didnt talk about Technology Industry at all. We talked about the foundation and education and health. Rose the amazing thing about him and melinda, it really is a partnership before he came full time over there and now has a lot of responsibilities, i mean, she really led the way as he and Warren Buffett give the credit all the time. I give her credit, too. Rose yeah. I knew her before they were a couple when she was just a product manager at microsoft. She was very smart the whole time i knew her and still know her. Rose and what about larry and sergei today . Well, sergei is, you know, pursues whatever he wants. I dont think hes trsd in the daytoday running of al alphab, which is the company that covers google and other things. Larry is the c. E. O. Of alphabet but not google anymore. Sindar pachi is c. E. O. Of google and reports to larry. I knew them before they had the big jets and all that stuff. Just like gates, steve bannon jobs, jeff, they had a great idea. In their case, like gates, they were engineers, and they invented something that was radically better, the Search Engine im talking about, radically bert than anything else. All the other things they do, android and all the other many things they do came afterward, but they cracked the case sort of on how do you search. Rose and how do you create advertising. Yeah. Rose there is mobile and Artificial Intelligence now. Thats where were heading. Right. We have a little bit now. Rose you say there is kind of a lull now. There is. Heres what i think is going on i think the activity in the labs of all these companies and, by the way, of companies we dont even know the names of yet that are probably sitting in warehouses literally this is how it is in silicon valley, these guys and women are in warehouses making this stuff, and they dont hang a sign outside, you dont know who they are. But the Big Companies and these other people, everything in the lab is running on all cylinders. Theyre working on Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, working on robotics, working on autonomous driving. Theyre working on augmented reality and Virtual Reality, but i think allmented reality is going to be bigger. Thats where you see virtual objects, but you also are seeing whats really in front of you through your glasses. So i would be seeing you but there might be something that doesnt exist on the table in front of us we both could see and maybe the viewers could see and we could talk about, all of that stuff is going on in the lables. What is happening, what i call the lull, is not much that is Game Changing is hitting the marketplace right now because this is going to take some time. I asked bezos last year, i had just brought out the amazon echo, i said are we in the first inning of this . He says, no, were to the first batter who has just come up to the plate in the first inning. Just started. Yes. Both he and sindar said this is about a tenyear project, this a. I. Rose theyre all using it. Theyre using it in small ways. Whatever phone you use, it uses it to tell you how long your commute is or, like on an iphone, if there is an address in an email, it will offer to show you directions to that place. It knows its an address. It knows Something Else is a phone number. It knows Something Else it will say this person is not in your contact book but we recognize it from your email. So thats a very crude, early form of Artificial Intelligence, so early, its so crude. Rose is there going to be some dominant one . Is it going to be a race between apple who has a new homepod or whatever they call it, echo, which is what amazon calls it right, google home. Yeah, there will be a competition between those devices. Rose will one come out the best or will they always use a multiple number . I dont know. Kind of depends on which of these ecosystems youve locked yourself into. If you carry an android phone, all your phones are in google photos, all your music is in google play music. You might prefer the google one. If you are using amazons various services, you might prefer the echo. If youre into apple photos and i cloud and all that stuff, the apple one might be the one. But i want to repeat, even these things are just the first thing. We are heading for what i believe what i call ambient computing. Were heading for the computer to disappear andip not even sure im pretty sure well have phones in ten years, im not sure we will in 20 years. I think the walls and the carpets and our clothing will all have sensors, well all have connections to the cloud, processors rose may tell us what we want to know before we want to know it. The best analogy i can make is think about star trek and how they could just talk into the air and the computer would answer all their questions and throw out visuals on a big screen, you know, i think thats where were headed. Rose you said if were really going to turn over our homes, cars, health to private Tech Companies on a scale never imagined we need much tougher standards for security and privacy than ever exist, especially in the u. S. Its time to stop dancing around the privacy and Security Issues and pass real binding laws. Yes, i wrote that. Rose yes, you did. Therefore, i believe it. Rose therefore, do you expect it to happen . Not with this congress. Rose yeah. I mean, they can barely get anything passed. But, yes, i mean, before ambient computing takes over, weve got a little while, somebody in the u. S. Government has got to get serious and pass laws that actually address the world were in now. By the way, i am not talking about micromanaging, overregulating and all this other stuff, but i am talking about providing some guardrails that give both consumers and, by the way, the industry rose do you think Companies Like facebook are facing up to this . I think theyre beginning to recognize this and getting a little better. I think they have a ways to go. Rose and why are they resistant . Well, i mean, you know, some of it is, in fairness to them, they dont want to overstep and be sort of censoring things and making judgments on their own. I think, also, you know, theyre not my criticism of them is they actually are a Media Company and a publisher of things. They dont see it that way. They see themselves as some sort of common carrier. But they do business deals with publishers and with tv networks and so forth. So i just think they have to step up more. Rose what else do you worry about . Invasion of privacy . You know, it has huge i worry about the followon consequences, like Health Insurers knowing things about your private Health Information that will cause them to deny you coverage or raise your rates, employers maybe not wanting to hire you because rose they have information that you didnt know they had. And then there is the whole security side. Im very concerned rose this is cyberspace. Yeah, about the weaponization of hacking, by russia, by north korea, by other countries. We still dont know, were still in the midst of trying to figure out just how badly they interfered with our election. Rose well, its more than that. I mean, if you talk to people at major corporations tore defense department, there are efforts made every day oh, many times a day. Rose many times a day to hack into issues that are central to what they do. I agree. So we need to figure out a path to secure our country which is every single day increasingly an online country without trampling on civil liberties. It is it is not an easy thing. I im not trying to say its easy. Its easy for me to write it. Its hard for people to come to dprips with it and do it, but we have to. Rose conferences. Everybody has a conference. Yeah. Rose you guys were in early and drew the best talent, certainly within the tech world. Thank you. Rose everybody wanted to come. You had steve jobs and bill gates on the same platform. Yep. Rose you dont see that often. Where does that world stand . First of all, i didnt do it alone. I did it with my great partner kara swisher who i know you also know, and where it stands, is like Everything Else in media, there is a lot of new competitors, a lot of competition. We just finished what i think was a very successful it regulation of our conference a couple of weeks ago. Rose you interviewed hillary clinton. Hillary clinton was one of the interviews, and we had others. Goes for about three days. And, you know, we just have to rose people come to hear things or come to network . Both. They do both. And we try to accommodate both. I think one of the changes, if you go back to 2003, is we were more there was still a lot of networking but we didnt build out the spaces for networking and the time for networking as well as we might have and now we do. Now we have more of a balance between what goes on in stage and offstage. Rose Virtual Reality going to change the way we observe the world around us . I dont think so. I think Virtual Reality is a thing. I think some companies will make a lot of money off it. I think some people will spend a lot of money on it, but because right now and as far as i can see, wear these heavy goggles and rose it makes you feel like youre on the scene. It does but you cant see the rest of the world around you, so you really are engrossed. So its a great gaming environment. It has some industrial uses. It has entertainment uses. But i dont think its a mass thing like, i dont know, texting or Something Like that, or facebook, whereas augmented reality which we already talked about i think is a bigger deal. Rose whats interesting, too, what we have seen with computers with the proliferation of data and lots of people now mine data and, therefore, give people decision points that they never had before. Yeah, i mean, if you go to a Biotech Company now, you might expect to walk in and see a bunch of wet labs, you know, normal labs with chemicals and test tubes and tissue, and they do have some of that, but lots of the maybe maybe most of the floor space in these companies are computers and servers warring away, trying to analyze molecules, trying to look at this data, trying to correlate patterns, and thats the hope for discovering new drugs. Rose so the future is a sense of, you know, you move to another stage of life. You have had numerous successful stages now and the evolution continues, still part of this amazing world that you first began reporting on in 1991. Yeah. Im going to try to reinvent myself one more time. Ive done it a few times and im going to try to do it one more time. Rose you dont know what thats going to be exactly. Ill tell you two things, and there may be ten things, you know, and this is in addition to spending more time with my wife and family and little granddaughter, but im going to try to write a book. Rose right. Because i think ive seen lining you said, ive known a lot of these people and seen interesting things. Rose you used to tell me stories about steve jobs calling you up at 12 00 complaining about things you had written in the next mornings paper. Right. Im going to write a book. Rose will you tell us about it . Call me, ill come. Rose you always have. Thank you for calling me. Rose thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Your vu hello, and welcome to a kqed newsroom special edition on the arts. Im thuy vu. Across the bay area, artists are tackling topics that are thoughtprovoking, moving, and surprising. On this show, we bring together highlights from our arts coverage. One group of singers explores the threshold between life and death. And well look at an artists largescale works painted on a canvas of snow. Plus, visual artist jim campbell plays with thousands of blinking lights to create tapestries that dazzle the eye. But first, we start with the company odc dance and a piece that tackles science and the environment. The impact of climate change, from rising sea levels to rising temperatures, is often expressed through charts and data. Its an appeal made more to the intellect and less so to the heart, but one bay area choreographer wants artists to help audiences