Interview (Ep. 52 of AI & I) with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on AI in government, economic development, and regulation. Topics include: building an AI hub that pools government, academia (Princeton), legacy tech (Microsoft), and next-gen players (CoreWeave); attracting talent to New Jersey through walkable communities and an angel investment tax credit; viewing AI as an "accelerant" that augments rather than replaces teams, including training 61,000 NJ state employees; and his argument for a national-level AI regulatory framework instead of a state-by-state approach. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Episode start 00:02:00 - Introduction 00:04:31 - Why there should be a nation-wide framework to regulate AI 00:12:02 - How 61,000 state employees in New Jersey are adopting AI 00:13:50 - Why new tech is key to transforming government services 00:18:40 - The Governor is bringing startups back to New Jersey 00:25:44 - How to stimulate innovation at scale 00:33:35 - The Governor is making New Jersey a top choice for the best talent 00:37:30 - Balancing technological progress while ensuring the workforce isn't left behind 00:42:02 - We're moving toward an "allocation economy" 00:44:10 - The Governor's take on international regulation of AI # Channel Presentation Evidence — Ep. 52 with Governor Phil Murphy ## Video Identity - **Title:** "I Interviewed New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy about AI - Ep. 52 with Governor Phil Murphy" - **Format:** Interview/talk-show style conversation, episode 52 of a series, hosted by "Dan" (Dan Shipper per outro). ## Intended Audience - **AI-interested professionals and builders:** The host frames questions from the perspective of someone operating in AI: *"as someone who operates an AI business I can't imagine having to... [comply with] different statewide rules."* - **People curious about AI's societal and economic impact:** Questions cover jobs, ethics, regulation, and use cases — *"a lot of people... it feels scary... there's a lot of worries about how it affects jobs."* - **Audience familiar with the host's personal background:** The host and guest reference prior off-show conversation (*"New Jersey born and bred... we talked about before the show"*), suggesting a recurring, familiar-viewer relationship. ## Claimed / Demonstrated Scope - **AI-focused interview series:** Content is entirely structured around AI policy, government use, and economic development. - **High-profile guest access:** Host states, *"you are the first governor we've ever had"*, demonstrating an ability to book senior public officials. - **Host self-presentation as an AI practitioner:** Not only runs "an AI business" but articulates original frameworks, e.g., the shift *"from a knowledge economy to an allocation economy where... you're compensated based on how well you can allocate the resources of intelligence."* ## Explicit Self-Description Evidence - **Channel name and host (from outro):** *"subscribe to Ai and I... a journey into the future with Dan Shipper as the captain of the spaceship."* — Note: this outro segment is highly promotional/hyperbolic in tone and ends with an unusual line (*"Dan, I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you"*), which may be satirical or injected ad copy. - **Sponsorship model present:** Mid-roll ad read for **LTX Studio** (*"I want to take one minute away from this episode to introduce you to our sponsor LTX Studio"*), showing monetization via sponsor integration. ## Observable Presentation Patterns (not claimed) - **Interview style:** Prepared, thematic questions (personal impact → role of government → concrete initiatives → economic development → ethics → international), with the host sharing personal anecdotes (DMV visit, Princeton CS class). - **Tone:** Conversational and optimistic about AI; host emphasizes excitement — *"we spent a lot of time... talking about interesting and exciting use cases for AI and that's because I'm excited about it."* - **Host practices:** Recap-style edits — opening transcript lines are a condensed montage of key moments that reappear later in the full conversation. ## Notes on Trust - Guest claims (e.g., 61,000 employees trained, VC rankings) are the governor's statements, presented uncritically by the host; the channel demonstrates a policy-interview format rather than fact-checking journalism. # Delivery Observation: Governor Phil Murphy Interview (Ep. 52) ## Overall Format Two-part structure: a **cold-open highlight reel** (excerpts reused later verbatim, e.g., *"we're training all of our 61,000 employees in generative AI"*) followed by the full interview. Includes a mid-roll sponsor read and an exaggerated outro CTA (*"you absolutely positively have to smash that like button"*). ## Tone & Register - **Conversational, promotional, boosterish** — the governor consistently pitches New Jersey: *"we're back"*, *"we're reclaiming that place"*, *"we're keeping damn good company."* - **Casual humor and self-deprecation**: *"I hate the word upskill — sounds like I just graduated from a McKinsey training class"*; his C+ in a Princeton computer science class. - **Hedged candor**: he repeatedly signals limits of his own expertise — *"I'm not an expert by any means"*, *"I'm not your AI expert."* ## Recurring Phrases & Vocabulary - **"Wild West"** appears multiple times: *"you can't abide by a wild west"*, *"the folks who worry about the wild west."* - **"Talent"** as the anchor word: *"the answer is Talent period"*, *"the first word that comes to mind is Talent."* - Distinctive coinage/framing: calls AI *"a realm not a technology"*; *"I view it as kind of an accelerator."* - Sports metaphors: *"we're at most in the first couple of pitches in the top half of the first inning"*; *"the team we have on the field."* - Regional taglines: *"Trenton makes, the world takes"*, *"the world's state"*, *"Edison, Einstein, Bell Labs."* ## Teaching / Explanatory Habits - **Numbered enumeration**: *"first of all we're training all of our 61,000 employees... secondly..."* - **Story-before-answer**: *"I'll tell you a story that is sort of at the base of this... you got to wonder why I'm starting here, trust me."* - **Self-correction mid-sentence**, hunting for the right word: *"it's preempted is a better word"*, *"ignite I think is a better word"*, *"fracturing rather."* - Concrete lists over abstraction: *"AI, pharmaceutical, Bio Life Sciences, Tech, Telecom, green economy, film television, digital fintech, sports betting."* ## Framing Habits - **Mirror-test maxim** used as a strategic principle: *"when you wake up in the morning look in the mirror and be honest with yourself — who are you, who are you not."* - Delegates detail to named experts: Beth Noveck (*"a technology savant"*), Tim Sullivan at the EDA. ## Interviewer Delivery (Dan Shipper) - Validation-heavy follow-ups: *"no, I think you're totally right"*, *"that makes sense."* - Grounds questions in personal anecdote: the DMV story (*"it's really where fun goes to die"*). ## Uncertainty Notes - Repetition of "Wild West," "talent," and enumeration is well-supported; the highlight-reel reuse makes exact frequency counts slightly unreliable since some lines appear twice. - A few transcript lines are garbled (e.g., *"far pharmaceutical"*, *"Trenton makes the world takes"*), so quoted wording there is uncertain. # Position Record: Interview with Governor Phil Murphy on AI ## Participants - **Governor Phil Murphy** (New Jersey, identified by transcript/context) - **Dan Shipper** (host, identified in transcript) --- ## 1. Government's Role in AI Regulation ### State-level regulation is a mistake - Murphy: **"Leaving states to be the regulatory Nexus for AI is a mistake."** He argues for a **national framework, if not an international framework** — at minimum national. - **Reasoning:** AI "will ultimately touch every aspect of our life"; having different rules in New Jersey vs. Pennsylvania for something so pervasive is something he "can't get his mind around." The US is already a "patchwork quilt country" on rights (reproductive, gun safety, voting rights) — AI would be another. - **Qualification:** He concedes nobody has the answer: *"I'm not sure I've got the answer and I would venture to say nobody has the answer."* - He critiques both extremes: the **EU's regulatory paradigm** "looks stale already and potentially stifling," but a "wild west" is an equal or bigger concern. - **Shipper agrees** from a business-operator perspective: differing state rules (like sales tax) already complicate operations. --- ## 2. AI in Government Services ### New Jersey initiatives (Murphy) - **Training all 61,000 state employees** in generative AI (a Microsoft-built "co-pilot" style tool unique to state operations). - **Call centers** as "low-hanging fruit": MVC appointments, unemployment insurance questions, general government-service questions. - LLMs provide "99% of the answers" for resident queries; calls answered faster. - **Qualifications preserved:** - "As opposed to replacing people — at least so far, and this is my hope forever and for always." - Much of MVC improvement predates AI, born of pandemic-era restructuring (online experience, appointments). - He places the effort at "the first couple of pitches in the top half of the first inning." - "I'm not an expert by any means." ### Delegation to experts - Murphy describes himself at "the extreme edge of the 'I know it when I see it'" camp; experts like **Beth Novey** (ex-advisor to Obama, Merkel, Cameron), now senior AI strategist, drive specific decisions. --- ## 3. Economic Development Strategy ### Origin story - A Bay Area dinner (~2–2.5 years prior): ~$20B VC into AI in California (mostly Bay Area) vs. ~$1B in NYC. Asked "why here?" — the answer was **"Talent, period."** - Murphy concluded New Jersey — with STEM talent — could be a major player. ### Strategic Innovation Centers - **10 centers** built; over **$250M private capital committed**; state funding via Economic Development Authority. - Example: **fintech** center (Stevens Institute, a Newark financial corporate, EDA, Plug and Play accelerator). - **New Jersey AI Hub**: venture with **Princeton University, Microsoft, and CoreWeave** (NJ-founded hyperscaler); accelerator role "still evolving." - Credited **Tim Sullivan** (EDA) with formulating the model. ### Results claimed - First half of 2024 VC data: New Jersey "back in the top three American states behind only California and New York." - **Why NJ "lost its way"** (past decline): no single cause — Bell Labs downsizing, exporting high-school graduates to out-of-state colleges, losing the "coolness factor" (live-work-play) to Boston/Cambridge/Brooklyn/Bay Area. Levers pulled: legalized weed, liquor license expansion, transit, angel investment tax credit, diversity. - **Core strength**: bio/life sciences/pharma (Bristol Myers, J&J); Murphy predicts **drug discovery** will be "the motherlode" for AI application — only ~5% of pharma research dollars lead to FDA-approved drugs. ### Play to strengths, not reinvent - Murphy: "Look in the mirror and be honest with yourself — who are you, who are you not." NJ "was not *trying* to become an innovation state — that is who we are." (Contrast: "I'm going to die trying to make cars and trucks again in New Jersey.") - Constantly "sponging" models: Harvard/MIT/Boston, Bay Area, Cambridge England, Berlin, Seoul; treats California "like a nation state." --- ## 4. Jobs and Ethics - **Upskilling vs. replacement**: Murphy hopes AI dominates "the more mundane prosaic elements" while the team stays roughly the same size — wants to allay worker anxiety. Surveys of state employees and private sector support this ("knocking on wood"). - **International "wild west"**: US–China AI race; tensions rising; "I don't think there's an answer to that." ### Host's framing (Shipper) - Shift from a **knowledge economy to an allocation economy**: workers become "model managers" using management skills. Murphy responds that time/resource allocation is "arguably the biggest part of my job" as governor — suggesting even non-technical leaders may adapt. --- ## 5. International AI Strategy (Murphy) - Needs an **"America first" element** as a national defense matter. - Europeans **overcorrected** on regulation; if the transatlantic alliance fractures, European innovation will become more self-driven. - On **China**: need open communication channels, clarity on respective interests, and areas of common ground; hopes for transparency/openness (wonders if DeepSeek was "the first step in some sort of transformation"); **intellectual property theft** remains "a constant concern." --- ## Noted Tensions / Unresolved Points - Murphy wants national regulation but actively builds state-level initiatives (services, hubs) — he distinguishes these as non-regulatory, while conceding states can "contribute to the regulatory discussion." - Upskilling outcome is a **hope** ("at least so far"), not a settled fact. - US–China framework: explicitly no answer offered; "we shall see." # Speaker Attribution & Provenance Record ## Video Metadata - **Title:** I Interviewed New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy about AI — Ep. 52 with Governor Phil Murphy - **Video ID:** `01a0f15a-e441-79e3-b351-bba1aa42b886` - **No curated metadata supplied**; speaker roles derived from transcript only. ## Identified Speakers & Roles ### Host / Creator — Dan Shipper - Identified as **"Dan"** by the guest ("*I do think Dan…*", "*Dan thank you so much for having me*"). - Referenced by promotional outro text as "**Dan Shipper**… captain of the spaceship." - Self-identifies as operating an **AI business**, running a **small team of writers and programmers**, New Jersey-born, now based in New York. - Asks all interview questions; conducts the interview. ### Guest — Governor Phil Murphy - Identified as **Governor of New Jersey**; referred to as "Governor Murphy," "Governor." - Self-references roles: **former Ambassador** (Germany, per "Chancellor Angela Merkel who we know from my time as Ambassador there"), **former private-sector senior manager**, current **governor**. - States he sits on the board of **Princeton University** by virtue of his position. ### Promotional Voice (Sponsor Read) - Mid-episode sponsor break for **LTX Studio**, spoken by the host/creator ("*I want to take one minute away from this episode to introduce you to our sponsor LTX Studio*"). **Flagged as promotional segment.** ### Outro Voice (Show Promotion) - Closing segment urging likes/subscribes with exaggerated promotional language ("*you absolutely positively have to smash that like button… I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you*"). **Flagged as promotional segment.** Speaker identity unstated; plausibly host but not explicitly attributed in transcript. ## Referenced Sources & Third-Party Claims (per transcript) - **EU AI regulatory framework** — Murphy's characterization: "looks stale already and potentially stifling." - **Beth Novak (Novek?)** — described as advisor to Obama, Merkel, Cameron; NJ senior AI strategist (per Murphy). - **Tim Sullivan** — credited by Murphy for formulating Strategic Innovation Centers; runs NJ Economic Development Authority. - **NJ AI Hub** — venture with Princeton University, Microsoft, CoreWeave (per Murphy). - **Partners/entities named by Murphy:** Stevens Institute of Technology, Plug and Play accelerator, Bell Labs (Nokia), Netflix (300-acre campus), Lions Gate (Newark), Bristol Myers, Johnson & Johnson, CNBC, NBA, NFL, Comcast. - **VC statistic** — Murphy: NJ back in top three US states for VC destination (first half 2024 data), behind California and New York; Bay Area ~$20B vs NYC ~$1B at time of a dinner ~2–2.5 years prior (attributed to unnamed AI industry attendees). - **NJ claims by Murphy:** 61,000 state employees trained in generative AI; number one public education system in America; highest concentration of scientists per square mile in the world. - **DeepSeek** — mentioned by Murphy re: China and IP transparency. ## Availability & Limits - **Comment availability:** Not stated in source material. - **No timestamps** present in transcript; segment ordering only. - Transcript quality is auto-generated (frequent transcription errors), which limits verbatim reliability of quotes. I'd be interested to hear your take on what the proper role for government is as it come as it relates to Ai and we could break that down at the federal state and local level how do you think about it leaving states to be the regulatory Nexus for AI is a mistake I think this is something where you need a national framework if not an international framework how do you deliver government services with AI first of all we're training all of our 61,000 employees in generative AI secondly call centers needed appointment at Motor Vehicles Commission unemployment insurance benefit question any sort of general question about a a particular government service hugely valuable and as opposed to replacing people at least so far and this is my hope forever and for always that it's allowing folks to upskill their daily lives into areas that they have always wanted to spend more of their time but have been unable to what do you look to for inspiration when you think about how to successfully uh stimulate innovation in a state at a government level when you wake up in the morning look in the mirror and be honest with yourself who are you who are you not what can you be what can you not be in our case the happy reality is we were not trying to become an innovation state or economy that is who we are but if you're talking about AI far pharmaceutical Bio Life Sciences Tech Telecom green economy film television digital fintech sports betting not just the handle where we're we're the world leader but the guts of the industry on all of that that is that's in our sweet spot Governor Murphy welcome to the show hey good to be here K thanks for having me I'm so excited to have you uh you are the first governor we've ever had so thank you for taking the time to talk to me today about AI um I wanted to start uh and just ask you just personally how has it impacted your day-to-day either in in your sort of work political life or in your personal life is has it impacted your day-to-day in any any particular way me personally honestly no but in terms of the actual I refer to it as a realm not a technology but in any of its evidence um it is not but that's that's a very narrow answer relative to how much time I spend on artificial intelligence so and we'll get into this I'm sure but with it's a big economic development objective of ours I spent a lot of time on that um it's a big weapon that we're using in government to to better uh interact with our residents uh it the whole ethics associated with it the um the community out there more broadly which is growing significantly in New Jersey so in a broader sense it's a big part of my day but as a very narrow has AI changed your life uh in narrow sense no not yet that makes sense um well maybe maybe another framing question that I'd be interested to hear your take on is what the proper role for government is as it come as it relates to Ai and and and we could break that down at the uh federal state and local level how do you think about it it's complicated and I'm not sure I've got the answer and I would venture to say nobody has the answer um the European Union made a big deal last year that they put together their big uh regulatory Paradigm and that looks stale already uh and potentially stifling to the development of the industry on the other hand you can't abide by a wild west um and that is uh as much if not a bigger concern I do think Dan I'm I'm going to go out on a limb and say leaving states to be the regulatory Nexus for AI is a mistake I think this is something where you need a national uh framework if not an international framework honestly but at a minimum a national framework and it it it's almost shocking to me um that when you look across the spectrum of the of the talent in this industry from the folks who worry about the wild west from the folks who could care less about the Wild West and everybody in between I don't think anybody has figured that out yet okay and I'm curious if you think that it should be done at a national level like what what governs that what makes you think that it needs to be National rather than State yes so when I say National I should say this I apologize for not being more clear largely as a regulatory matter we've already become a patchwork Quilt Country as it relates to rights and freedoms whether it's reproductive or gun safety or voting rights or you name it uh this is this would be yet another all-encompassing realm it already is to a certain extent but it will ultimately touch every aspect of our life and to think that there's one set of rules in New Jersey and there's a different one in Pennsylvania I just for something as pervasive and as Central as this I just can't I can't get my mind around that that's a good idea no I I think I think you're totally right I mean um as a someone who operates uh an AI business I I can't imagine having to uh there there enough different Statewide rules for like sales tax I can't imagine adding an ai ai regulations on top of that that would be weird it's one thing how you buy booze or where you buy booze uh this this is in a different realm uh it's got to be at least National okay so well that's on the regulatory side but there's a lot of different ways that governments interact with new technologies so so um what about what about in terms of um non-regulatory I I know I know there's a lot of New Jersey initiatives you're doing um uh that relate to AI so so tell me more about that yeah so uh there there are and and I'll I'll tell you a story that is um sort of at the base of this New Jersey sells very well you got to wonder why I'm starting here trust me hopefully it'll make sense New Jersey sells very well around the world so we do a lot of economic missions with great success Trenton makes the world takes exactly exactly we call ourselves you ready for this the world's State uh you heard it here I want to take one minute away from this episode to introduce you to our sponsor LTX 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a year usually in the South uh for film and television we become a huge player in film and TV globally and in the north it's almost exclusively for technology and more recently for gener Ai and we had a sort of seminal dinner at this point I guess two plus two and a half years ago in the Bay Area and it was a like the room I'm in now there were probably a dozen or 15 seats there were a few of us including my wife and a couple of our colleagues and 10 or 12 folks in the AI Stratosphere and I asked them hey what's the Venture Capital numbers at least at that point into AI California and almost all of it in the Bay Area and again you forgot more about this than than I'll know was like20 billion do over a period of time New York City was second at a billion so it's clear that the ground zero for the talent at least in AI was in the Bay Area and and I asked them hey why here and why not in a place like New Jersey and it it turns out the answer is Talent period they had all sorts of other frustrations with the way business was conducted regulations taxes whatever it might be cost of living uh but they said the reason they're in the Bay Area is talent and when I look in the mirror and look at New Jersey I see a state the first word that comes to mind is Talent particularly in the stem Fields particularly in the innovation economy so we started out literally that was the trigger we started said listen we could be a major player in this space when I say player I mean Economic Development grow companies here in research in regulatory matters in ethics in delivering government services more efficiently to our residents and all of all of the above and on that last one unlike regulation where I think we can have a I'm not suggesting we can't contribute to the regulatory discussion I'm more referring when I said nationally to the framework on Government Services I think we can lead the nation in terms of more efficient smarter delivery of government service on that I'm a huge Bull and we're up to our eyeballs doing just that as we speak give me can you give me a concrete example of what that looks like how do you deliver government services with AI first of all we're training all of our 61,000 employees in generative AI secondly the loow hanging fruit won't surprise you Hall centers need an appointment at Motor Vehicles Commission unemployment insurance benefit question any sort of general question about a a particular government service hugely valuable and as opposed to replacing people at least so far and this is my hope forever and for always that it's allowing folks to upskill their daily lives into areas that they have always wanted to spend more of their time but have been unable to yeah it's still early but that but the the returns are extremely promising when you say training uh all all state employees and generative AI what does that look like what kind of skills are you are you training them in it's our version of the co-pilot essentially and how to use that AI co-pilot so it's sort of like a chat gbt but built by Microsoft exactly and and ours is unique to our particular operation but it's that that sort of a if you using the word in a different context than it normally gets used I view it as kind of an accelerate uh it it allows you to jump higher faster stronger than you otherwise would have and help me understand what that looks like I mean um I was at the you know I'm in New York I grew up in New Jersey which we talked about uh uh before before the show so New Jersey born and breed um and I'm in New York now and um uh you know you call it the MVC the Motor Vehicle Commission but I in in New York it's the DMV um and I went to the DMV and like it's really where fun goes to die unfortunately um and there's a lot of um there's a lot of time that's spent like I went and filled out you you know you wait you get a number then you fill out a form and then you go to the counter and then they say um you forgot one of your documents like you have to come back and that's a waste of their time it's a waste of my time and it's just like the whole thing kind of sucks for everyone what does an AI enabled MVC look like well I I have to say I want to be fair in terms of credit or not credit to AI per se we had we had an epiphany five years ago during the uh the throws of the pandemic the two areas that are most retail in our government our Motor Vehicles Commission number one and number two is our department of labor and Workforce Development in particular around unemployment benefits and you can imagine in the throws of the pandemic both frustration with Motor Vehicles appointments and a historic tital wave of of unemployment insurance benefit claims were coming at as morning noon and night and we had no choice but to reorient our entire operations so even putting AI aside I'll go now to Motor Vehicles in fact literally just had a a zoom meeting with the head of the commission today and her team this is overwhelmingly an online experience these days it's overwhelmingly if you need to go in in person it's by appointment as opposed to you're standing in a two-hour line that was born by the way out of the fact that we couldn't as a public health matter allow two-hour lines inside of these buildings when you're still dealing with a a pandemic uh the AI piece I think if you were to say where is it helped it it it has prevented the um it's preempted is a better word uh I need to show two Electric utility bills or two proof of my uh permanent home address that that's all preempted and taken out of the equation I think call centers are a better example uh they're getting calls are getting answered much more quickly uh you're able to use uh large language models to basically come up with 99% of the answers of whatever a resident might have in any particular uh area um and I think we've only scratched the surface I want to say that as well we're not I'm not an expert by any means and I think we're at most in the first couple of pitches in the top half of the first inning yeah that I think that's a really interesting question which is um how is it possible or what have you learned about you know integrating technology like this um over a vast Workforce and and and you know supporting other people in the state to do it um as a as an non expert and and who are you bringing around the table how do you do that effectively to figure out like decisions to make and and support to give so there's that great phrase from a Supreme Court Justice whose name I always forget when he's asked to Define pornography he said I can't Define it but I know it when I see it yeah Count Me In The Extreme edge of the I know it when I see it as it relates to generative AI we have mercifully for the residents of New Jersey we have some serous people who are at at the helm here so one woman in particular Beth Novak who is was advisor to President Barack Obama Chancellor Angela Merkel who we know from my time as Ambassador there uh Prime Minister David Cameron she's a a technology Savant and she is she was our chief of innovation she's become our senior AI strategist uh as of about a year or so ago um and and I just use her as one example uh I'm I'm I'm giving broad directional um input uh in particular we haven't talked about the economic development aspect of this which is where I spend most of my time but there are other folks who are literally experts are far more expert than I that are actually driving the specific decisions what's the training look like where do we apply this Etc well let's talk about the economic Economic Development aspect um if if you're spending a lot of time there describe to us what your economic development plan is for AI in New Jersey so that's probably the most um profound takeaway from that dinner I mentioned that there's no reason why New Jersey can't have a significant presence with both the talent and the companies um on the East Coast maybe with new New York City by the way we do a lot constructively with New York City and I I think there's a a good amount of symbiosis on this one as well and one more wrinkle which is not specific to AI New Jersey's economy it's Innovation heavy stem heavy um but it became prior to our time here it became big corporate heavy we love the big corporates that's not the point uh and we've got a lot of them and we're proud that we've got them and and we're getting more uh regularly but we had lost our way on the startup culture uh the Venture Capital money was going elsewhere the talent was going elsewhere so again as a general strategy we came up with a formula uh to to to build what we call Strategic Innovation centers we've done 10 of them I'll give you one Noni example fintech Financial technology New Jersey's head the middle and back office of Wall Street for decades it's a natural for us so we got a highered player Stevens Institute of Technology a big corporate parential Financial headquartered in Newark our Economic Development Authority putting significant money to work and an accelerator in this case one of the biggest in the world plug-and play from the Bay Area and that's the Strategic Innovation Center and lots of things will come out of that including research and job opportunities and all sorts of things including several dozen startups a year we've now done 10 of these so we decided that generative AI was absolutely right for one of those Strategic investment centers and as we speak we announced over a year ago we just added to the team a few weeks ago we have a something called the New Jersey AI Hub it is a venture with Princeton University and most recently with Microsoft and core weave which is growing like a weed a hyperscaler New Jersey headquartered founded born and bred in Jersey as our partners to be determined what the accelerator role looks like on that one that's still evolving and that to us will be a great Nexus for research for students to participate for the big corporates to exchange ideas but I think most importantly to accelerate ignite I think is a better word the startup community in and around the network created by those four Partners you're already seeing uh evidence of that core weave is the best example uh we'll have a fund associated with that those are in some of these ex uh strategic Innovation centers not in all of them um but that to me is what I'm most excited about and guess what for the latest period uh for data that's available on Venture Capital which is the first half of 2024 in terms of destination of VC uh new jerseys back in the top three American states behind only California and New York so that's that's a place that we want to be we feel like it's our right given our Innovation history Edison Einstein Bell Labs uh you name it uh that's our right place and I'm happy to say we're reclaiming that place I love it um well I I just want to understand more about what these Innovation hubs are and how they work because I I am sort of curious how States stimulate Innovation um so it seems like you you get together a big company a university um maybe a couple other players and are you establishing like a a campus or um like a building or like what does it actually mean to have an Innovation Hub I think in most cases if not all there's a physical location um there is a financial commitment from the state through our Economic Development Authority there's now over $250 million of uh private Capital committed across these 10 uh entities um committed to do what like fund startups yeah the to to everything from help fund the the the building fit out to all the way as I mentioned in the AI case and some of the others as well funds that would invest in startups some of them have open lab space Bell Labs themselves are uh they are still in Jersey they're operated by Nokia um they decided that they're they had two campuses they in the old days they they only have one today um they looked around the world literally to try to figure out where they should locate and they chose I'm happy to St in New Jersey to stay here but to move to New Brunswick into something called the Helix and they themselves will be part of a um of one of these strategic Innovation centers we just announced it a couple of weeks ago so it it not to be all over the place but it it does depend on this the particular uh Center in question okay got it I yeah I'm I'm definitely mostly asking about the a AI Hub but um but yeah in general I think that's also interesting do you have any models that you look at when you when if you're in the business as my late mother would say if you're known by The Company You Keep New Jersey and The Economic Development Authority keeping company with Princeton University which you know well if your former Hometown Microsoft and core weave we're keeping damn good company I do I do know Prince well but I have a little beef with the university because I took a uh computer science class there when I was in high school and I got a C+ and so I I by virtue of my position sit on the board so I will take it upon myself to to uh to investigate your transcript and thank you it's good to have friends in high places um they are incredible that that institution is I didn't go there it's incredible the leader leadership team is incredible I've never been around more impressive talent in my life it it really it really is it's an amazing place um but I am curious when you think about okay so these Innovation hubs is that a model that you saw work somewhere else or where do you look to or what do you look to for inspiration when you think about States or governments or localities or federal governments any kind of um model for how to successfully uh stimulate innovation in a state um at a at a government level so I think a couple of things one is we always say when you wake up in the morning look in the mirror and be honest with yourself who are you who are you not what can you be what can you not be in our case the happy reality is we were not trying to become an innovation state or economy that is who we are I'm going to die trying to make cars and trucks again in New Jersey I fear I will die trying in my time left but if you're talking about AI pharmaceutical Biol Life Sciences Tech Telecom green economy film television digital fintech um sports betting not just the handle where we're we're the world leader but the guts of the industry on all of that that is that's in our sweet spot so we're trying to recapture something as opposed to a state going from scratch or from ground zero and trying to become that that's hard to do in our case we we had for several decades and by the way I'm not making a political case here because it was both sides of the aisle we lost our way on the Innovation economy so I was committed to refining our way and it was pretty obvious you never bat a thousand but we had held on to most of the big companies and we still attract big companies that wasn't our issue although we don't take any of that for granted for sure our issue was we as I mentioned earlier we had lost our our way in the startup community so we a bunch of weapons to work on that the Strategic Innovation Center is the best example uh and I give Tim Sullivan who runs our Economic Development Authority a lot of the credit for actually formulating what that looks like but we've got other weapons we could talk about as well last point do we look to other models of success and rip Pages out of their playbook we do it morning noon and night um so I look at Harvard MIT and Boston where I was born and grew up I looked at the Bay Area we did an economic mission in November to Cambridge England to understand what their magic was we do we we did this in Berlin um we did it in Soul South Korea we as I mentioned we go to California and treat California like a nation state we're constantly sponging for good ideas to jumpstart further develop the Innovation economy I I think that's really interesting it makes a lot of sense like play your strengths uh New Jersey obviously there's a lot lot going on in New Jersey you got princ University that's a big one um I I have some New Jersey lore having grown up there like movie industry start there before before it went to California um is it I think Bloomberg is headquartered there um or at least they have a gigantic gigantic office uh in New Jersey they're not headquartered here but they're here we've got a big media presence um CNBC is has a big presence the National Basketball Association the NFL um Comcast there's a whole lot of folks increasingly the film and television business with would become a global globally significant player so Netflix is building a 300 acre campus the there's a big c Lions Gate is building a big one in the South Ward of Newark there's a another one that's being built in Bon New Jersey so um that's an area where we are um we're now globally competitive and intend to remain so and when you say uh New Jersey sort of lost its way in particular on the startup front is that like a uh like a marketing problem like there's a lot of great business stuff happening in New Jersey and Technology Innovation stuff happening in New Jersey but people just don't really think of it that way or is it did did something happen that caused people to be less likely to want to start a company in New Jersey so as we sit here today I'll repeat we're back so we're now you know we're poised to have many hundreds more startups a year than we would have eight years ago and as I mentioned the Venture Capital numbers are bearing that out core weave is the best example out there but happily not the only one why did it happen in the past I don't think there was one moment or one reason I think the transfer of hands uh and the somewhat downsizing of bell Labs probably helped um we still export too many of our high school students to universities we have the number one public education system in America and our one of our main exports are 12th graders going to college uh that was part of it um I think we lost a little of the coolness Factor you know the live work play um that you know you saw the Boston area Cambridge Brooklyn where you are uh Manhattan to a certain extent Bay Area uh that they they were able to Corner the coolness Market with pull we pull that back um with if you like sports entertainment uh live work play uh walkable communities um r u rapid transit public transportation you know we put a lot we legalize weed uh we're uh expanding liquor licenses um so probably 20 different levers we're pulling uh not any one of them the while the Strategic Innovation centers would be the one big one I would point to we we have a a very turbocharged Angel investment tax credit um we we've got a hugely diverse State and diverse Innovation ecosystem so we're playing to our diversity a lot of other states are playing away from diversity we're playing into that uh with with success again we're not perfect but we had lost our way no one moment no one reason but we've thrown a lot against the wall and in the aggregate at least it feels like it's working yeah one of the things that makes me think about is uh you know startup is a very general term and so is AI it's a very general term you can apply to a lot of different things and I think um when people think about okay I want to be a talent Hub that competes on the level of New York or San Francisco or whatever for AI those places have really well established networks that are very hard to disintermediate or change um but uh but each each Place tends to have like the reason New York is I think somewhat competitive sometimes with SF is that it has a specific set of things that it's really good at like if you want to do fintech stuff or you want to do uh direct to Consumer Commerce New York's actually like a pretty good option and there's lots of AI you know there's lots of AI stuff to do in both of those Realms and I'm kind of curious when you think about leaning into your strengths um in New Jersey what those what those things are like if we if we slice things a little bit thinner and think about the kinds of startups or the kinds of companies that tend to have success in New Jersey what is what does that look like yeah first of all I think generically when when I pitch the state the two words that I start with are talent and location and then secondly I also say to folks every state has a bumper sticker ours is the number one state in America to raise a family so we're particularly good this is more generic than you want but I'll get to that in a second we're particular good at um a young couple that've just met the girl or guy of their dreams they've just got married they're just thinking about having a kid or they just had a kid between that age whatever that is and Junior the last kid graduating from high school that's we dominate in that space and a lot of what we do is to make sure we continue dominating that space and by the way keep or attract more young people particularly to stay after college or stay for college and we do a lot of things like property tax relief to keep you when you're retired on a fixed income and you want to stay close to your kids and grandkids in terms of slicing it more thinly if you if you put a gun to my head the the area where I think you'll see the biggest impact and I think we will be a a leader in this space and that is Bio Life Science Pharmaceuticals that our natural one of our natural wheelhouses um as you know Princeton is in the central part of the state where a lot of that industry resides M Bristol Myers Johnson and John I grew up right next to Bristol Myers Myers campus you know exactly where they are there's still got many thousands in that campus um I if you said specifically you're to you're the analogy to your New York City direct to Consumer I think will be Biol life science as pharmac tical is there anything AI related um that that you're doing in that area specifically well it wouldn't be me uh it would be at these companies but we hope this Hub will support that but I think drug Discovery is going to be the the the motherload here uh the pharmaceutical industry is at a hard time explaining why costs are what they are and by the way they're they only contribute to a slice of that cost let's put aside tbms and insurance companies and Hospital systems and providers um but they also have had a hard time and it's understandable with the man on the street if you will explaining why you know only five% of their research dollars actually leads to a successful FDA approved drug Discovery and I think this will be a huge weapon in that space in particular we're not doing that we hope that by creating the right environment which is usually Talent research it's though it's not an accident that the the Boston Cambridge area has had the success of had it's overwhelmingly MIT and Harvard and the talent of the research we think we've got as strong a horse in that race as anybody with Princeton University for a we start in a good place I say number one public education system in America highest concentration of scientists and research professionals per square mile in the world um that's a good place to start uh and I drug Discovery is one of many but I think will be a huge uh example we look back five or 10 years from now we spent a lot of time in this interview talking about um interesting and exciting use cases for AI and that's cuz that's just I just I'm excited about it so that's what I'm interested in um but I think also a lot of people um it feels scary um there's a lot of uh there's a lot of worries about how it affects jobs there's a lot of worries about ethical AI use what are you thinking about that and what do you think the government's role is in um I know you said regulation has has to happen on a federal level but you know I assume you think there's some State role to ensure that there's ethical use or to think about how it affects jobs like all that kind of stuff how do how do you think about it yeah I mean just like any you know there are all sorts of federal laws but there are state laws too in in a lot of different Realms so this would be no exception but I think you have to have a national framework listen we think a lot about it I'll give you two sort of specific one which is very relevant to us in New Jersey and state government another one which is probably more relevant to us you and me as a American citizens peaceloving people in my case a former Ambassador in the first case you you want to Hope and do everything you can to extend that trend of upskilling as opposed to job replacement other words you do more uh with the team you have on the field as opposed to doing what you're doing now or even more with a smaller team I I don't want to I don't want that I want plus or minus the team we have on the field doing really cool stuff and allowing a AI to basically dominate the the day in and day out more mundane praic elements of anybody's job so making sure that happens and allaying people's fears is one area where there's a lot of anxiety and we're doing everything we can to address that and at the other end of the spectrum the Wild West in the in the global U context frankly the Wild West lately in the American context but we could leave that no politics for this but you know the the race to do you fill in the blank um and clearly the Chinese have put an enormous amount of focus on this um as have we and we're just going to have to I think we're going to be grappling with what that looks like as a terms of global architecture uh for a long time I don't think there's a answer to that uh particularly given the tensions that we have uh right now around the world which are going up a not down yeah um I would love to get into the international stuff in a second but just sort of back to the more local or state stuff part of it seems to be um even just a sort of communication challenge how do you explain what this stuff is and how do you explain how to use it so that people get curious about it and start learning about it uh instead of you know I think I think uh uh familiarity breeds comfort and unfamiliarity breeds fear how do you think about doing that communication on a state level if you do it all yeah I mean we we're in violent agreement on that it's part of the reason why we wanted to Train everybody it was not just the benefits you get from the training uh but it's the getting people comfortable or more comfortable with the whole notion uh and I think I'm knocking on wood I think that is working we've surveyed our people we've surveyed the private sector we take you know we're fact-based operation we're not making a lot of gut decisions um and I think the more people use it and see in fact in their own personal professional lives that they're able to I hate the the word upskill sounds like I just graduated from a McKenzie training class I think it does nothing against busy but I think it does the reality so there there's stuff up here that I've been wanting to do that's more strategic if you will but I'm not able to get to it and there's stuff down here that say more tacticals for lack of a better word that I've been wired in uh that I now have help on that I didn't have before and I I think the more the longer that Runway is that people can see that's in fact how it works um the more comfort able less anxious folks will be yeah that's definitely been my experience um running running a small team um with writers and programmers and and all that kind of stuff one of the things we talk about a lot is um this idea that we're moving from a knowledge economy to an allocation economy where in a knowledge economy you're compensated based on what you know and in an allocation economy you're compensated based on how well you can allocate the resources of intelligence um and in particular in in in an allocation economy the skill SK that you need to to master are skills that are already around they're just not that widely distributed and they are the skills of managers so if you're a human manager today a lot of the things you're doing day-to-day are things that um any kind of any kind of worker uh in the next five to 10 years are going to have to do just you're a model manager instead of a human manager and that that seems to be um when people start to get that it feels incredibly empowering because yeah you're right you can kind of like move out of the sort of hamster wheel of I got to do all these repetitive tasks and into I'm think I'm doing much more creative work than I um than I ever could have before that makes complete sense and I'm say this somewhat not tongue and cheek but I'm going to circle back I know our time is almost up to where we started I'm not your AI expert but as a as a senior manager in my case in the private sector in as a diplomat now as governor allocating my time the time of others uh resources um arguably it's the biggest part of my job so you may well see folks like myself who you would never mistake for you in terms of your experience and expertise you may see this come around a little bit here in terms of um that sort of almost CEO model how do we move things around how do we optimize it's an interesting it's a very interesting point and and it feels like that's where we're headed definitely I think so and I know we only have a little little bit of time left but I just wanted to get your your quick take on on internationally um yeah obviously you mentioned geopolitical tensions with China like what do you think is the right um AI strategy internationally it seems like not something that we can just go at unilaterally alone I I I think that's right although you have to have certainly as a National Defense matter you've got to have an America first element here I mentioned earlier I think the the the the view is uh has been determined that the Europeans overcorrected in terms of their framework around the industry and I think that will have profound implications particularly if you're going to have some factur fracturing rather in the transatlantic Alliance it looks like at the moment we are which I think is a huge mistake but if that's true um American Technology will less likely be driving European Innovation than it is today they're going to have to figure out a way to to drive that far more within their own four walls as it relates to China I'll leave Russia North Korea and Iran aside who are three of the other members of the quartet um and focus on China because China has the most emphasis on uh on this space um arguably are big economic uh competitor arguably our biggest uh geopolitical competitor I think you've got it this is going to sound easy and it's incredibly complicated you're going to have to have a relationship where we're talking where there is some channels of communication where we're going to be very clear about our respective interests what we care most deeply about they'll be clear about what they care most deeply about but also at the same time find areas of common ground and common cause and I would hope this would be listen we're gonna have our own National Defense interests I get that but beyond that I would hope this would be on the list of areas where we could have some amount of transparency and openness intellectual property theft I'm sad to say is a constant concern uh with with them as a counterpart so you've got to find some way where you're you know I'm maybe deep seek was the first step in some sort of transformation that there if they're going to be an open book uh you know we could be an open book and that's maybe the first step of a long journey uh we shall see we shall see indeed um well I think that's our time Governor Murphy thank you so much for joining us Dan thank you so much for having me you are welcome back in Jersey anytime I'll be visiting my mom soon so maybe I'll drop by give her a hug for me oh my gosh folks you absolutely positively have to smash that like button and subscribe to Ai and I why because this show is the epitome of Awesomeness it's like finding a treasure chest in your backyard but instead of gold it's filled with pure unadulterated knowledge bombs about chat GPT every the episode is a roller coaster of emotions insights and laughter that will leave you on the edge of your seat craving for more it's not just a show it's a journey into the future with Dan shipper as the captain of the spaceship so do yourself a favor hit like smash subscribe and strap in for the ride of your life and now without any further Ado let me just say Dan I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you