Good afternoon and welcome to the Commonwealth Club of california, the place where you are in the know. You can find the club on the can you just give us insight into what it was like to be a dissident input and led russia and how that kind of crackdown on Civil Liberties and participation intensified . Was it gradualtalk to us about how that happened . Its funny , eight months ago i was here in South Pacific and i traveled across the country promoting my previous bookk. Which well talk about also. Everybody wanted to ask me about ibm and the blue. [laughter] so now i have a new book. And i dont think its inescapable. But somehow its the two are connected because a lot of russian stories are connected to cyber security, to, its not ai but interference using new technology. Now, regarding the situation in russia, its, its also quite extraordinary moment. I just arrived here today and just in the square board and while im waiting for of course, i looked at the news from moscow, from alex diwali. A colleague for big rallies on june 12. It seems that in four days time we had massive rallies in russia. There are 211 cities now, just people taking 11 russian cities. There were these expressing their desire to join these rallies but of course this is vladimir putin. The reason i mention that is because i have this question im being asked all the time. Vladimir putin is so popular. What can we do . Youre inthis country, you can measure the popularity of a politician. Maybe its plus or 3 or four Percentage Points but it cannot be, you cannot mix state is about 30 percent. So in britains russia, first of all you have to recognize that people are being asked anonymously, what do you think ofvladimir putin , they are uncomfortable. Theyre very uncomfortable because many of them were born in the soviet union or have memories about the soviet union and asking about a kgb dictator, by a foreigner on the street, its kind of image important. When they say 80 percent of russian people will be asked about support him, my question is i want to look at the remaining 20 percent. So theres 20 percent of people who are so unhappy that they are not afraid to say what they think about him. I wouldnt pay any real attention to these polls because the true popularity of could be measured by the factthat so many people are willing to join his rally. Theyre marching here in San Francisco or new york when you are being protected by the police, most likely confronted by russia and people realize that all the risk, they are still willing to show their affection, their disagreement and their willingness to seek change. When putin,s regime and cronies try to organize big rallies like supporting the annexation of crimea, they bring people from the state jobs, there often just, they often give money and its many of those recorded because they couldnt have it in 2000, they saw they had to pay for it. So england is eating 90 percent of people almost willing to take action. Through actual level support with enthusiastic support. Its not reflecting. What led you go to your decision to leave the country, what were the factors that led up to that . Invitation. To visit the russian analog of fbi. So it was invitation to be the, its like be a weakness witness on one of the many cases that they set up at the time so that was in 2,012. There was a crackdown and many of my colleagues that would be arrested or being investigated and when i received it i was traveling abroad. My mother received it and i called the late boris denzil, my friend and colleague, an ally and asked him if he and boris, he said gary, stay away because you enter the building and if you leave the building, you will not be a witness anymore but a suspect. So i wish you would have followed his own advice because it was apparent at the time that a regime would not play by its own rules and he wanted to eliminateany opposition. And looking at the list of people who marched with me, 10 years ago, five or six years ago, on moscow street, they either are in jail, in exile or worse. You wrote the book winter is coming talking about is a real danger to the world and you were critical of theobama administration for not taking that threat serious enough. Which we had thought about. We should have listened to you a little more at that time but you also say we should beg trump showing how fragile our democratic systems are. I think this is looking at whats happening now, its this from, it hes not capable to destroy but to show the weakness of the system could be exposed. And also as a wakeup call. So theres a lot of people thought that in this country, they thought that democracy is taken for granted. All the rights that we enjoy forone and two centuries , i remember that two years ago i was at the show and i tried to raise this issue with putin and the threat and he was so dismissive. And he ended up this conversation by saying look, wake me up when he takes over poland. I almost jumped out of my chair. Responding that i heard similar comments about eight years ago and we all know what was the outcome. And after november elections, bill has changed his views and became, a crusader, smashing putin and russian interference and i couldnt help tweeting that it seemed that skipped over all of them. And we are, but also its when i say, you could see the backlash against nationalism in europe. Its because of trouble i believe, trump is an expensive case, we saw the collapse of nationalists in poland. The old rule that many believe was poised when the elections were totally crushed and by the way, it was crushed in the election because it eight percent of those people voted. And the other majority voted, the slow majority, you could see that they share a vote is not as impressive as it looked. Then we have friends, france is, that was by the way a big setback for putin. They believed that they would win because they had let then, they had also postponed and sean from postleft, all all of them lifting sanctions and they are about bringing russia out of the cold and plotting a new era of cooperation and putin lost macro one, i think trump, again i thought it was a significant moment to make another joke saying that built three cards out of four and he lost his bed. He seemed he was running out of trouble cards. One more question. Masha gibson was a journalist who also had to leave russia for her safety like you did. Recently last week wrote an oped in the New York Times and she said we imagine the villains of history as cutting strategist, brilliant masterminds of war. This happens because we learn about them from history books which weve narrated that retrospectively in events like logic. Making them seem predetermined, historians and the readers bring a perception by authority. If a historical event caused some shocking destruction, then the person behind us and i must have been a correspondingly giant monster. Terrifying as it is to contemplate the catastrophes of the 20th century, it would be even more frightening to imagine that humanity has assembled unthinkingly into its darkest moments. So then im going to say as someone who spent years studying mister and as one of a handful of journalists who have had conversations with him i can vouch for the fact that he is a poorly educated, underinformed, incurious man whose ambition is vastly out of proportion to his understanding of the world. To the extent he has any interest in the business of governing, it is his role on the world stage or on Russian Television that concerns him. Whether hes attending a summit, piloting a plane or hang gliding with siberian cranes. Its the spectacle of power that interest him. And when i read that, it made me wonder how you compare the persona of President Trump with vladimir putin. Speaking of trump as we had a conversation before, looking in his face and i can repeat it here. That i think we are lucky that it was trump who actually exposed the weakness of the system. A man with no plan, no strategy and now we can deal with that because we see is flawed and there are so many weaknesses in these administrations, that we are being formed properly and i think it will help america to get stronger. Its like with a virus. A virus attacks the body, that will weaken the immune system so if it doesnt kill you, it makes you stronger. To underestimate putin, thats a big mistake. And shes right describing him as poorly educated. Everything she said was right, but he had instincts. The fact is that the man stays in power for 18 years, tell you that hes quite a savvy dictator. He knows how to manipulate people around. He won these battles in russia among his cronies. But most important, he instinct i havely learned that instintively learned its a brand new world, and you can use technology. You can use the free speech, the free environment of the democracy to promote your own agenda. And he knows its not about substance. He can lie all the time. He understands that his advantages, hes not going to be called by a special counsel to testify under oath ott. He can do whatever. And he can confess, yes, i lied, as he did with crimea. Remember first, oh, how dare you. Im a man of peace. Next statement three months later, oh, maybe there were some russians, you know, vacationing patriots. [laughter] then few months later, oh, how could we let these brave people fighting alone . Some form of tacit approval. And then eventually a year later, full recognition, bragging. Of course it was us, and pinning medals on the Russian Troops that were part of invasion. Now, in his mind he did everything right because he was a kgb guy. And we all remember even before cbecoming president when he was acting Prime Minister and meeting his former colleagues at kgb headquarters in moscow, he said once kgb, always kgb. And lying is a part of his job. And he is amazed that he keeps lying, and people are still buying it, still asking him did you do that . No, i didnt. [laughter] by the way, by saying i didnt, he just, you know, hes looking back at russian people thinking, of course, i did it. [laughter] they dont get it. So lets sell this nonsense to them. And its all about his appearance. And as long as hes being treated as the most powerful man on the planet by the way, two consecutive years, forbes magazine, thats what counts. He knows not because he read books like us, but because he has these instincts that no one ever in historyattacked a strong dictator. As long as dictator looks strong, there will be no uprising. Well, let me get to the point about lies. You tweeted, i think yesterday, the point of modern propaganda isnt only to misinform or push an agenda, its to exhaust your Critical Thinking and to annihilate truth. And i think that my concern is how can our sort of Democratic Society withstand this level of mendacity and chaos . What advice do you have to americans right now . Again, first of all, you should realize that the threat does exist. I think its better late than never. And also putin, putin found out that he can weaponize this fake news industry. And by the way, i could see that for a few people that speak russian in this audience, more than few, they should be aware that this business of creating fake news industry started in russia many years ago by confronting russian opposition, by creating this fake presence on internet to lead people who are looking for alternative news, who were not happy with channel 1, channel 2 propaganda machine. So it worked. Its because if you show up on internet and you look, if youre browsing there and you find a web site that looks decent and has some news, but it also sells you not 100 lies as channel 1, but it has its own window where it has to make sure that while you buying the credentials of web site, you will also, youll not notice that some of the elements of the story, they are just fake news. Then putin went beyond russia to the russian to neighboring countries, russianspeaking world, and it worked again. And, of course, he decided he could use it globally, having create troll factories and also many lobbyists. And finding quite successful because, again, hes a kgb dictator finding these weak spots in the free world because you can line hundred different ways. And now with all this social media channels, you can manipulate Public Opinion by amplifying these are the fake stories can a. I. Exactly. Someone will pick it up. And its more difficult to tell truth, because theres only one way. And its nuanced. Its exactly. For instance, when russia, Russian Missile hit the plane, it was not just a blunt denial. They came up with ten different versions. Yeah. Oh, it was i ukraine and missile. Now, it was ukrainian jet fighter. No, it was a plane full of dead bodies sent from holland. It just [laughter] ten different versions. By the way, it was amazing, Russian Television two different channels, they both confronted the report of the dutch investigators, and they had two different versions of truth, quoteunquote. One talked and with all the diagrams showing it was ukrainian missile. Another one talk about ukrainian jet fighter. Almost at the same time. Again, it doesnt matter. Because you construe this nonsense to all different alternative versions to the public, and somebody will buy it. Its somehow, i would argue, even more dangerous than propaganda, because he doesnt have to sell you anything. The soviet propaganda was limited because they had a story to sell. They had to convince you that soviet union wants peace, and they could support only certain political groups, left, far left, anarchists communists. Putin . Doesnt matter. He can go with far left, far right, anything that disturbs status quo. Anything that spreads chaos is good for him. And he can sell whatever. He knows how to weaponize whatever. Refugees from syria . Fantastic. Lets push more of them to europe, because they will disturb political balance and create problems for mainstream parties like angela merkel, in france, in other countries. So spreading chaos with putins resources and with openness of the west and total, being totally unprepared for this kind of onslaught, that worked for him. So whats your advice to the ordinary americans . First of all, you understand that this threat does exist. And its not, its not a minor threat. I understand theres isis, but you should look at putin as the main source of problem because of his ability to attack you simultaneously on many fronts. You should recognize you think putin is more dangerous to American Society than isis . You kidding me . [laughter] are you asking now . Its, even not today, but some, few days, couple weeks ago when concern. [inaudible] was on was comey was on senate floor, he said russia is most dangerous because of its intentions and resources. Isis comes and go. We can spend a lot of time talking about conspiracy theories and how many potential kgb infiltrations there, because you look at the officers that work with russia, then you have many field commanders that mysteriously, you know, came to syria. Then its about very strange relations between assad and isis. Because theyre not fighting each other. And by the way, russian planes never bombed isis. When you rook at putins operation look at putins operation in isis, he always bombed americanbacked, westernbacked rebels because he knows assad and isis are all helping to create chaos. Is you have to fight back. There are many ways you can hurt putin because as long as you look strong, he will be challenged. But you have to make him look like a loser. And the many things that you can do, start hurting them where it hurts. Look, follow the money. Oh, yeah, sanctions. Yes, yes, sanctions, but as long as lets say united [inaudible] one of the top oligarchs, as long as his wife can run his business from yes geneva, of course, he can be denied visa access to europe. Big deal. And the same. Macron can say many tough things facing putin, but as long as is making business with russia, putin doesnt care. So putins empire depends on the west complacency and willingness to make money no matter what. And we still yet to see the proper response from the United States and europe just making sure not so much for putin, but for his cronies that the continued aggression will have a very high price. What do you miss most about living in moscow . My mother. She lives in moscow. Shes 80. It was too hard for her to to move outside russia. She has two sisters, nephews, nieces. So i have my on also my son also from a previous marriage. Thats, you know people. A lot of relatives there. My wife and our kids, they are in europe now. Coming back and forth would be ideal, but for me now its oneway ticket. All right. Lets turn to deep thinking. Artificial intelligence is already changing so much about society, about work, and yet to get to the 2016 election again, we were having debates about, you know, coal mining jobs and Manufacturing Sector rather than how do we adapt to this future that is not just coming, its here. And youre an optimist, which is wonderful. I love that about the book, that you really think that if we combine machine power with humanpowered thinking, that thats going to be good for the future. Can you just talk to us a little bit about how you frame your thinking around Machine Learning and a. I. , Artificial Intelligence . The idea behind the book was to combine a few themes. One is it was my personal story. Its being part of this humanMachine Competition and what i learned from that. Another one was the story, its a history of humanmachine relations. And i thought it would be important to write it in just plain language, explaining that its a natural progress. And you have to demystify that, because theres so much panic based on this disfor thed version from hollywood distorted version from hollywood, the terminator, the matrix. Look at the problem objectively. And, of course, looking into the future and promoting the what i believe is the future scenario, human plus machine cooperation. And that was the outcome of my matches with deep blue when i just realized you cant beat them, join them. [laughter] but what it is, i think as you mentioned again the elections and politics, its always bothers me this kind of hypocrisy. Because machines for centuries, if not millennials, have been taking over all forms of manual labor. Now, when machines were taking over jobs from, you name it, manufacturing jobs, thats natural. Now the only difference is machines coming after people with college degrees, political influence and twitter accounts. [laughter] and its a big story. But again, in the history timeline, its just, its just another, its just a le