But first, governor gavin newsom has appointed Laphonza Butler to fill the senate seat vacated by the death of diane feinstein. Hello. Thanks for joining us. Im christine zee. Youre watching getting answers on abc7 Laphonza Butler is set to become the only black woman currently serving in the us senate and first openly lgbt person to represent california in that chamber. This afternoon Governor Newsom was in San Francisco and heres some of what he said about butler. This is a special person and what is a special opportunity was for me to ask her an importantly get a positive response to everything that shes been advocating for in the last few years. Meet this moment. It as it relates to rights regressions, issues of civil rights and issues of lgbtq rights, women and girls, issues related to voting rights. Shes been on the front end of all of these things in some ways cant even make all of this up. If i had to literally design from the mind of imagination, put pen to paper, someone who i would like. So that was Governor Newsom. Meantime this is Laphonza Butlers response, tweeting this i am honored to accept Governor Newsoms nomination to be us senator for a state. I have made my home and honor by his trust in me to serve the people of california and this great nation. No one will ever measure up to the legacy of senator dianne feinstein, but i will do my best to honor her legacy and leadership by committing to work for women and girls workers and unions struggling parents in all of california. I am ready to serve. Joining us live now to talk about this huge appointment is abc7 news insider phil matier. Phil interesting. I would have to say. So i would have to say so. Its interesting for the state and its interesting for gavin newsom and its interesting for the senate. Lets start with the state. Gavin newsom appointed Laphonza Butler. She is a he appointed the senator for california, but not necessarily a senator from california. She is mississippi, born and raised. Shes worked in politics as a consultant and a campaign manager. Shes worked for unions , the Service Employees international, which is a powerhouse within the democratic party. Shes worked with airbnb. She did a couple of years on the board of regents and appointed there. But she is long time been a consultant for Kamala Harris and other politicos. In fact, she comes from the same. For a while. She was a partner in bear star stratton, which is the same Political Consulting group that runs the campaigns for jerry brown. Gavin newsom and Kamala Harris. She is the consummate insider. The question is, how is she going to fly on the outside right. Shes also leading emilys list right . Right. Whats that . That is a womens is a group that is goes out to try to raise money to elect Democratic Women to offices nationally, locally and on the state levels. So hes going with the women. Hes going with the promise that he was going to do an africanamerican. He is doing, as he likes to put it, in this moment at this time , rising to this moment where she stands on water, where she stands on agriculture, where she stands on tourism and military spending and things that other rulings that affect the state of california we havent heard much about. Right. Well shes never held elected office, not in california. But clearly shes politically connected. Yes. And theres a difference there. You can be politically connected, but youve got to connect with the voters. Now, you know, its like i said, theres a reason this is unusual because usually somebody can point back to the time they did this or did that. This is a very limited one. This is one thats coming literally he picked from outside because im not sure he could get somebody from the state to step in and be a caretaker, although hes taken that off the table and upset the people that are currently running for the us senate, which is katie porter and adam schiff and barbara lee, an africanamerican woman who is not at all happy. Her supporters are not at all happy that he picked her. Right. Well, there were a lot of black powerbrokers who had been pushing for barbara lee. Right. Including, i think the black congressional black caucus. So how are they reacting to this pick . Theyre saying that some of them are very upset about it. Others that say theyre going to work. One of the big questions, another thing that gavin newsom did with this, and it is gavin newsom and people have been talking about it is senator butler, senator designate butler is 44 years old, as opposed to these other candidates that weve been seeing that are upper age. So theres a generational shift here as well. So we have some older people within the Africanamerican Community who are upset because they wanted barbara lee. And then you have some. Yes. And then we have younger people who are waiting to see how they go. Right. Okay well, lets talk about the fact that he didnt want to get involved, play kingmaker to that race, the senate race thats already underway with katie porter, adam schiff and barbara lee. The three democrats who are well known in it with lee trailing. So where does this leave her now . What danny is in a is in a vulnerable situation right now where all three of those candidates, adam schiff, katie porter and barbara lee, have to decide whether theyre going to run for the senate or hold on to their congressional seats. Theyre all neither of them is breaking over 25 in the polls. So its not a sure thing for any of them. But they cant run for both offices at the same time. They have to decide. So you were explaining to me theres a decision date. Theres a decision date of finally date. Im not sure what it is, but in a couple of months, people have to finally say, im going for this office or that office. And thats where were going to see this thing shake down, because thats when its interesting to note that in the time in the last two weeks that governor gavin newsom originally said he wanted somebody that was going to be a caretaker for and not running. Yes, he said he miscommunicated on that and that hes actually he the have dropped the idea of being a caretaker, which was you cant do that anyway. You cant appoint somebody and tell them they have to step down. It would be a wink wink. It would be a verbal promise, which means so little in politics these days. So theres nothing preventing butler from actually saying, im going to run for the permanent seat. Exactly. 2020. Everybody are going to be watching that to see if that happens. On the other hand, everybody can say, well, if its hers, if she if she says that thats not necessarily the case, its not the case. You have to be known by the voters, not by the insiders. Insiders will get you there. But its the voters that keep you there. And i go no further. Ironically shes put in there to finish out the term of dianne feinstein. Dianne feinstein first got elected in 1999 by defeat, defeating a Senate Appointee from the pete wilson put in to finish out his term. So its getting that seat possession might be 9 10 of the law, but its not in necessarily in politics. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And i also wonder, right, does she even have the network or name recognition mission . You know, normally when youre an incumbent, you have all the advantages. Right . And we saw that with padilla when Governor Newsom appointed padilla. It was pretty much guaranteed he was going to win that seat. But he was already known hed been a state senator. Yeah he had worked his way and secretary of state. He was known within the state and within the state apparatus. And he was the latino out there. So this is a different, different equation. And so a lot of conventional wisdom is youre going to stay right where it is at the convention because you get out on the street. Its a different story. Look, i know its just all pundits and people saying what they think, but, you know, i have heard some say gavin newsom probably couldnt have found a black woman whos a political leader now in california within the state to accept that offer, because they didnt he could have maybe gotten a retired judge or a retired college dean or Something Like that. But also, you know, part of this is youve got to move to washington, d. C. Which is one of the most expensive places in the in the world to live. And if somebody else would have had to relocate, there, Laphonza Butler is living in maryland right now in a suburb of washington, d. C. So shes already there. It certainly seems like hes hoping that this would indeed just be interim. Well but i want to ask you, what are the political ramifications for Governor Newsom in making this choice . Well, theres a question there. Like i said, is he making it for california or is he making it for the nation . And the senate is a 5050 type situation right now. So theres pressure on him to get an appointment made. Right. But shes not going to take the Judiciary Committee seat or the Intelligence Committee seat, anything like that. Right junior, everythings were going to see what happens. Like i said, theres no such thing as convention anymore. But going in there, he is making make no mistake about it, from the get go, Governor Newsom has been making this a national issue. Hes gone on network talk shows to discuss the senate seat. He is out there saying we need this in the senate. We need that in the senate. This is a group of 100 people that represents the country or is being cast as that. And many of the votes they take. And weve seen are on National Issues as opposed to water or roadwork or things like that that we want here. So hes also pitching to a Political National audience. He wants to pitch to a young audience. He wants to say, i appointed a black lesbian to the senate seat and that is a national to the conclusion that he is still very much interested in the white house. At some point, gavin newsom is just interested in whatever. I mean, he it goes from the moment to moment, but hes making a national statement. I would say. Yes, he was spicing up what he likes to do, reel off his credentials on a national stage. But did he make any enemies in the way he went about this . Of course he did. And any time you make an appointment, you make one person happy and everybody else unhappy to various degrees. Thats just the law in politics. I will say that this time he was smart enough to do it quickly and to do it quickly because as you know, you dont want to say, well, im going to think about this and think about this and have everybody calling, pushing for different people and then it gets really sticky. Youre saying no to friends. You just have it done, get it done and move on. Do we have any idea what kind of initiatives or bills as senator would be . Senator butler , who would be sworn in tomorrow might push in her short time or when was that, junior . Can you even push for anything, really . You can join in on something and try to work through and get something added on, but no, you know, its interesting. Dianne feinstein was railed against for being old and enfeebled and but she was still there voting and she was using her seniority to get things done. Now were going to have a no matter what the outcome, were going to have a series of time where we have basically rookies representing very junior to very junior senators, and that no matter how you cut it, theres nothing. Governor newsom can do to change that equation. The voltage is just dropped significantly. All right. Well keep watching this. Thank you so much. But its going to be interesting because weve never seen anything like this before. But thats california. Yes, indeed. Thanks, phil, after the break, were talking about Artificial Intelligence with new products soon to be hitting the market. Well take a closer look and discuss how they can help or h apple and other Companies Began hitting the market. Were taking a closer look at exactly what the impact will be on consumers and various industries. Meta last week unveiled an ai personal assistant that people can interact with using any of metas messaging apps. Joining us live now to talk more about this is scott stein, cnets Consumer Tech editor at large. Scott, thanks for your time. Hey, thanks. Glad to be on. All right. Im sure you went to the conference, so give us the 401. On this meta ai personal assistant. Sure. So it looks like similar to chatgpt and many others, its going to be based on a large language model type of ai. And there are two different flavors of this. One is meta ai, which is going to live across facebooks apps. Metas apps, but also in their vr headset. The quest three and eventually in its smart glasses. The rayban glasses that they announced. So thats one level. And the other side are these personality ai assistant chat bots, which are these individual slices that are meant to give a little more flair or sub knowledge in some different areas, but are again trained to a particular subject matter. And given these faces that are animated basically by celebrities, how these play out , how much they will go off the rails and how much theyll be useful, we do not know yet. You know, for those who are excited about it, what is it that excites them . How is it different from the other virtual assistants out there . Well, i think the thing about this whole year in the past couple of years is just been, you know, the ways that it can mimic our behavior or throw out ideas, creative things, and how people enjoy playing with that. You know, in some ways it reminds me of the early days of voice assistants, and i wonder how much of it will be novelty, how much of it will actually stick. But the other part is that some of this is actually serving functions that could disrupt landscapes, you know, especially in terms of which image well, image generation has already been the case, but it now in terms of the ability for it to serve as a quick assistant through writing, to become an expert in certain areas, do you need Customer Service . Do you need a human being at the other end . Id say the answer is definitely yes, because a lot of these go off the rails and they continually seem to be needing correction. But i think its very tempting for a lot of companies to take the plunge and think about not making moves with this. Hence a lot of the a lot of the battles, including wga right. Lets talk about that. I mean, the Writers Guild of america just won that huge contract, right. And that will now, in part, restrict how ai can be used in film and tv projects. Do you think thats a good thing . Well, i think its needed. I think the lines in terms of where how this information is being trained, where, you know, what are the rights for the information and then also, you know, where is it going to be applied . Its a tool. And in that same way that, you know, you know, are you copying someone elses work or are you or are you taking over what someone else is doing . You know, i think its going to be a very slippery slope going forward. You know, even the question of what does it mean to rewrite . What does it mean to come up with ideas through ai . How is that enforced . You know, i think its a lot of companies are looking at this like a new tool set. I think in a lot of ways it is a new tool set. I mean, weve been living with ai in many forms for decades. This is just the latest iteration of it. And the question is, how much do we feel in control of it . How much do we feel like its gone out of control . I think it needs to be in control. We need to be handling it as a creative tool. But were currently in a situation where it looks like its quite capable of doing a lot more. Right, right. Look you know, human plagiarism, plagiarism has always been around and now we have to worry about ai doing it. And they know so much about us right. But i want to ask you, are there sectors in which youre seeing there could be more job creation, for example, as a result of ai use . Well, i think its interesting to me, and im just speaking, you know, speculatively, i think its interesting how improvised personal the relationship to ai is. And i think that, you know, when i look way back and think about things like, you know, desktop publishing or, you know, how someone brought up the metaphor of photography, i dont think its a perfect metaphor at all, but i think that there are ways that you could work with ai. There are certainly artists who are collaborating with it and experimenting with how it can be a creative tool set for them. And i think that idea, that collaborative improvizational way of existing with it could open up new opportunity for people. But i think im really concerned about anybody whos thinking about using this to replace people and think about, again, how many Customer Service chat bots do we already have that we thought would replace Customer Service . And right now youre still pressing zero to go to the operator. You know, i think that theres always a point at which this stuff will probably hit a wall. Ive already seen that to be the case with most interactions ive had with chat, gpt and other and other programs. So they work to an extent. Times i try the chat bot and then i end up ending the conversation and picking up the phone and calling the Customer Service line. Anyway yeah. And so i think and then the question of how much can go off the rails and also the rights part on the other end, theres all these different questions. What you definitely seeing with Tech Companies is that theyre all kind of employing the same playbook. You know, theyre there. Some of them are collaborating. You know, Microsofts Bing is going to be running in metas ai and youre having a lot of between alexa and meta and microsoft and google. Theyre all taking this approach and right now its very chat based. But im really interested in the future of perceptual ai because i look at vr and ar. Its kind of a scary, weird, fascinating territory because any other sensory data, any big