Squawk Pod: Debating a California wealth tax & adding AI to therapy - 08/21/26 | Audio Only

Bring in show music, please. >> Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, the proposed wealth tax in California and the swift backlash from the people it could affect. The state's billionaires, tech founders, and investors. Venture capitalist Ben Ner weighs in on the debate that's gotten the likes of Bill Aman and Mark Cuban all fired up. >> This is just bribing voters to keep your seat. I don't think any of these politicians like Rokan are actually as stupid as would appear from trying to do things that have never worked. >> And then let's talk about feelings. >> I will ask large language models all sorts of questions. You've never asked about me. How do I deal with Joe Carin today? >> How AI is used in mental health care. Telea therapy platform talkspace will now reach even more patients through universal health services. And CEO Dr. John Cohen is optimistic about its AI companion T. >> It is truly a safe model that's been developed and it's the only safe model that's out there. >> Plus, the latest on the Bessant buyback, the Bitcoin boom, and you get what you pay for. >> You're paying $50 a month for artificial intelligence. >> Yes. And in fact, for a period of time, I was paying the $200 max fee on Claude. >> It's Friday, August 21st. Squawk Pod begins right now. Expand Ander by in three, two, one. Q. Andrew. >> Good morning. Welcome to Squawkbox right here on CNBC on this Friday morning. We are live at the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Andrew Sorcin along with Tada. He's back. Joe Kernan. Uh, meanwhile, Becky Quick is off. Nice to see you, sir. I figure two full weeks, you know, come back on Friday, let people know you're alive, you know, and then it's only one um, you know, that then it's Friday, then it's then the weekend is here. And and I figure, you know what, I leave if if I didn't come in today, you're going to let the debt be 42 trillion when I get back. So, >> oh, that I I would let the dead get to 40. >> I'm gone. And now we're 40 trillion. >> It's 40 trillion. We're we're we're doing intervention projects with >> Is it different than market? Is it different? >> Oh yes. Oh yes. >> Oh, you don't like this? >> I think this is creating a real >> because if it doesn't work then what do you do? >> Correct. >> Okay. >> And I think I think there's right now I think there's like a credibility question about >> right. I see that how that's all gonna play itself out. Yeah. >> Maybe on the back of this and this is maybe the credibility story. It's a boon for Bitcoin jumping again this morning. It's now up uh close to 20% just in the last two days, breaking out of a range it's been in for the last few months. We had a conversation with Brian Armstrong just yesterday from Coinbase about this, about the Clarity Act, whether that would be uh the the driver of some of this. We talked to Anthony Scaramucci earlier in the week, whether actually it's a function of the credibility around our bond our bonds right now and whether that would actually inspire people to go buy Bitcoin or gold or things like that. It's always tough, right, with Bitcoin to really point to anything. Definitely definitive. We do know a pretty good low put in by Oh, he's not your buddy, but uh but Granthm 58,000 the day that uh that he was on. So I But he's not short, so we get some yak yak yak to say whatever he wants. Just, you know, in fairness, just the last two days though, the two people who came on around Bitcoin actually did not think that any of this would actually that there was a catalyst for Bitcoin right now. >> That's what I mean. Yeah. I I don't >> No, I'm saying Ethan Scaramucci, who's in the Bitcoin business. >> It's been nine weeks where Bitcoin is in the tightest volatility band that it's been in in the last 5 years. So, really hasn't moved much at all. I mean, we when the war started in February, it was roughly the same price that it is today. I'm saying there doesn't have to be one for it to go down or to go up, >> right? >> Which makes it that much more complicated. >> Well, same with stocks and and and everything else. But no, but the thing is, you know, >> hopefully with stocks and hopefully with bonds, there's things you could point to and say, "Okay, this is what's driving." >> Well, it's always supply and demand, though, isn't it? Well, and then there's a question about the supply or the demand of Bitcoin and what it is, but that's a separate matter. >> Well, you I know you Thank God you didn't short it at 58,000. Short it today. >> Short it today. That way you you actually feel the actual moves instead of just being able to talk. >> I'm not uh I'm not in that business. >> Okay, let's get back to it would help. Maybe it would help. Let's get back to the the story in bond yield. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson telling CNBC his department could upsize a buyback of government debt. He was speaking with Sarah Eisen on Squawk on the Street. >> We routinely do buybacks and we're going to increase the size of the buyback. And you know, Sarah, I would note that it could be more than the 4 billion per issue. Yields initially fell on Wednesday after the Treasury announced it would be doubling its scheduled $2 billion in buybacks to $4 billion. Though by yesterday some of that decline uh had been erased. Bessant's remarks yesterday caused another easing in yields but that only lasted a few moments. Besset said he doesn't think yields reflect the underlying fundamentals of the US economy. He also said there's a good chance the US budget deficit under President Trump uh has peaked. There are other people saying it does reflect the underlying fundamentals of the US economy in that a strong economy would be a a a reason for rates to go higher. Look, the thing I'm hoping for, there was a comment he made which I am hoping is right, which is he says, "Look, I have asymmetric information." Made a comment about Japan. >> Mhm. >> So, I wonder whether there's an indication that somehow there's going to be something that the uh uh the uh board of governors in in Japan do with the central bank there, Bank of Japan do. >> Uh maybe he knows something else about what's happening in the markets in the US. That is my only that is my prayer. Um, but obviously there's a lot of people asking a lot of questions. Meanwhile, uh, more news from the Treasury Secretary. He says the Trump administration has planned to squeeze Iran's economy, probably negates any current need to resume a muscular military campaign. If we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart. But I would emphasize that is for now. and we we do have control of of the street. >> Those comments followed a social media post by President Trump earlier this week that said that the US was about to impose what the president called an economic D-Day on Iran. But on that score, you know, we had had uh you had interviewed the Treasury Secretary just two weeks ago. He told us that there was basically a deal in Iran uh that was going to be made, right? >> The markets popped. Everybody Everybody, this gets to the credibility issue. They listened to what he said. the markets uh did what he said and then of course what happened in Iran uh was >> that was the Oman that was when Oman was going to do something then we got mad at >> turn turned around um so these are sort of to me the sort of longerterm questions about how you know how you're supposed to read what what the administration says about some of these things I remember the treasury secretary Dr. I remember years a month months ago talking about sort of n uh economic ninjing. Remember he used this you know we're the economic n we're ninging Iran and it's going to force them into a corner >> and >> things aren't great. >> It has not it has it has not worked. >> But things aren't you kind of have a smile while you're saying all those things. I guess you can't help it. It's okay though. >> No, it's the I know. But it it sort of shows these but hopefully everything does work out. I I I honestly I genuinely want it to. I genuinely want to. >> I do. I do, too. I I do. I do. We both do. >> Anthropic executives believe the company's IPO will probably match or beat SpaceX's debut in size. A Bloomberg report saying that Anthropic could file publicly for its listing before the end of the month. SpaceX IPOed in June. It raised $75 billion in what was then the largest ever firsttime share sale. Bloomberg saying that Anthropic's recent investor briefings have avoided the question of valuation thus far, but we're going to keep our eyes of course on this and uh I think the entire industry is largely dependent on what valuation anthropic comes up with because then it will uh move towards what valuation um open AAI ultimately comes up with. >> Cloud gets backed up. If I pay for it, does it not get backed up? >> That you need to pay. >> Have you heard of it getting backed up? I ask and it's like I can't do anything for you right now. It's it's hurtful. >> I I I'm I'm I pay I'm a customer so I don't know about these situations that you're having >> even after what Alex carp say. So you're paying you don't uh >> great service but I also pay for open AI. >> You pay for both of them. >> Of course. >> What are we talking for neither of them? >> What are we No, you kidding. Uh what are we talking about? >> What do you mean? >> How much? a month. >> It's the price of the thing. $25 a month each one. >> You're paying $50 a month for for artificial intelligence. >> Yes. And in fact, for a period of time, I was paying the $200 max fee on Claude, but I found that I didn't I didn't need it as much. US Army unit dangling a chance for reinlisting troops to binge what's sure to be the year's hottest video game. The ninth brigade engineer battalion based at Fort Seawward uh or Sewart, Georgia, uh has now offered soldiers four extra days off around the time that Take 2 Interactive releases Grand Theft Auto 6. This is happening in mid November if the troops extend their military commitments. Fort Stewart spokesperson telling the Associated Press an Army career counselor came up with the idea in part to remind soldiers of approaching reinlistment dates. Uh the spokesperson said that at least 20 of 130 eligible soldiers so far taken the perk and >> the funny. >> But by the way, people are addicted to this game. I have kids who play this game. They shouldn't be playing this game. I don't know if you know how violent this game is. >> No, I we've talked about with Becky. You know, you run over a hooker and you get extra points or something. >> It's wild. You're robbing the banks. You're stealing the this. There's there's it's it's pretty crazy. Um, I had to explain to my my mother what my what what my kids were doing, which was not the most comfortable conversation. Anyway, I think it is for 18 and above. So, I don't know how my kids are even playing this and maybe it's showing that I'm not doing as well as I should as a a parent with the parental controls. >> Well, it's good that it's 18 because if you want to do all that stuff, you're actually in a position to be able to go, you know, buy the firearms and do everything necessary to do the grand theft. uh auto right you're a you know to to act I'm not a person that thinks video games is is the root of all evil but don't you think >> I I can't help I cannot >> but overall don't you think that there's a general decline in sort of civility and everything else and some of it might be from all of this stuff social media for sure >> I think video games social media is all not it is all not helping >> right but and it's also something we're just not going to stop anytime soon. >> I wish I knew. I wish I knew how. >> Right. Well, now we just got to survive the, you know, the hunter killer Terminator type situation staring us in the face right now. Or the, you know, so good to know that they've designed some viruses from scratch and that AI can do it just like in I asked Claude, you know, to help me with, you know, reservations. He couldn't do that, but he's ready to design me a virus um for a pandemic. Tease will be next. >> Coming up on Squawk Pod, the wealth tax proposed by a union in California that's riing up entrepreneurs, billionaires, and investors. One of Silicon Valley's investors, Ben Nison, joins the chorus. >> This is the first time that the preeminent position of Silicon Valley as the innovation hub of the planet has been at threat. No other country has been able to do it. No other state, no other city. But now we're going to create self-inflicted wounds to drive out the entire ecosystem that feeds the success that is a majority of our economy. >> You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC today with Joe Kernin and Andrew Ross Sorcin. Here's Andrew. >> Welcome back to Squawkbox. A debate about Proposition 40, the proposed wealth tax in California playing out online and right here on our set. Joining us right now to weigh in is Ben Harrison. He's the founder of Tenacity Venture Capital. Uh good morning to you. Uh you've seen Mark Cuban's comments, you've seen Bill Aman's comments, you've seen Palmer Lucky's comments, Roana obviously on the other end of this. And I think we're all trying to figure out a what ultimately happens in California, but maybe more large more broadly what happens across the country. Um, if this if some version of this passes, >> so this one won't pass, but the next one probably will. The reason for that is this was orchestrated by the second sleaziest group of humans on the planet behind politicians, which is a union. And only one union was involved and they will get most of the benefit. They wouldn't let the other unions play, but when they fail this time, they'll let the other unions play and it'll be almost impossible to defeat and it'll be tragic. One of my LPs reached out to me when it was first announced and said, "Should I be worried?" And I was like, "I didn't know you were a billionaire." He said, "Well, I'm not, but I'm worried this will drive innovation and entrepreneurship out of California." And he is dead right. This is the first time that the preeminent position of Silicon Valley as the innovation hub of the planet has been at threat. No other country has been able to do it. No other state, no other city. But now we're going to create self-inflicted wounds to drive out the entire ecosystem that feeds the success that is a majority of our economy as far as I can. >> Let me ask let me ask you a different question though which is clearly there's a shifting opinion in at least parts of the country around around wealth around affordability around all of these issues. And the one thing that people in the industry in the valley and elsewhere haven't done is say you know what there are there is lowhanging fruit and things about our tax system that don't make sense whether it's carried interest. You may disagree with these kinds of things. We can we we can debate them. uh you know Dave Freeberg uh who's on the Allen podcast has suggested that we should have higher cap higher capital gains rates uh for people perhaps at at certain at certain types of numbers that match closer to things like income. Um you may be against that but there are things that you know I don't know where you are on a 1031 exchange. I don't know where you are about people taking loans against their um against their stock and and and and then um not paying taxes effectively. So that's the trickiest one I think is >> well but the question is whether the answer to this and nobody seems to be engaged in this conversation is to say look we shouldn't be taxing unrealized gains creates all sorts of truly perverse incentives right but there are other things that we could do to raise funds and by the way part of it is we need to raise funds part of is we need to cut costs and whether you can actually have that real conversation but it seems to be that either people say we should only be cutting costs on one side don't raise taxes on And the question is whether that is a long-term solution. >> Okay. So first with the basic premise that Silicon Valley wealthy have not proposed other alternatives. I don't think that's fair. I think you just talked about Freeberg's discussion there should be higher capital gains. Somebody else put forward that anybody that makes under say $150,000 no tax at all. Jeff Bezos has made that entirely supportive of that. Look, the top 1% pays 50% of California's tax income. Here's the other issue, though. California is not a good steward of our money. I would be perfectly happy to have a logical conversation about how taxes should be reorganized if I thought something useful will be done for it. We had a $95 billion surplus less than 5 years ago. They blew through it and more reset the baseline. It was a one-time gain and they spent it like it was an annual. What do you think's gonna happen if you hire an extra hundred people on this set because you had a onetime bonus because I dropped $100 million on the table and then next year nobody comes along and drops 100 million. Oh, woe is us. We don't have any money to spend. Horrible. We we uh approved $33 billion to build highspeed rail. We spent 18 billion. Sorry, 15 billion in 18 years. Zero miles of highspeed rail. In the same amount of capital spent, Elon put a reusable rocket into space and brought it back and caught it. But and we're at 24% spending now. We're usually at 20 and we raise the same amount 18 or 19%. So it you know you can say well we could talk about some but all the heat and all the energy and all the discussion is about about raising taxes at the same time that that one side is talking about Medicare for all. So there there's no genuine uh impetus to try to cut the 24% that that we're spending. That's where the problem that's why we're at 40 trillion and and working around the edges and it's fairness and all these fat cats with their yachts doesn't even raise any money. It doesn't even raise any money. >> But look at the cutting problem. The cutting problem. >> You have to do it. >> But no, but look at what what happened with Doge. Did didn't happen. Look at what's happened to our military budget. Look, look at all of the things, by the way, that this administration has fraud. Look at what's happening with Medicaid fraud. Look at what's happen. And and do you read about it anyway? >> They are catching some of it. They are starting to do so. In fact, I have a company involved in this right now where it's not as high-profile as Doge was, but they're just using data to tease out where actual fraud is happening. >> I'm We should be doing that. I'm not suggesting we don't do that. >> Today is about Bill Clinton reformed welfare. It's back with a vengeance in the at this point you can you can sit at home and make $55 $60,000 a year. >> But we also have just doubled our defense budget practically. So just think about think about >> there might be a good reason for that >> and maybe we need to but uh for a very long time we talked about Republicans by the way talked about bringing that number down not not up. So >> it doesn't matter who's in power. Whoever isn't is mad at whatever the people there are doing. I mean I I've become so disenchanted with our political system. It's the best in the world but it still sucks. And you know, we do spend like crazy with no effect. >> Do you think we're at a breaking point? I mean, part of this question is around the bond market. >> Well, the bond that that's it's been wild to watch what's been happening there. And then they tried to fix it. And of course, that didn't appear to work, right? Cuz it, you know, one day blip. Somebody said uh band-aid on a bullet hole. I thought that was a great quote. I don't think we're at a breaking point. You know, first of all, California is a very large state. What is it? The seven. >> You're talking about California. I'm talking about the country. country we just heard is what 70% of of GDP whereas you know what did Britain get he said it got to 270% Japan's >> and that's a disaster >> right so Japan we can't accept that as where we want to be >> but it doesn't mean we're close yet >> so one of the things that was interesting to me when I was looking at the historic reality in California $95 billion deficit I'm sorry $95 billion surplus why taxes taxes on capital gains and other income from great IPOs and other companies We're about to go into the largest creation of wealth across many, many, many human beings through the IPOs will happen this year and next. And yet, California is actively trying to drive those exact human beings out of the state. The number of people I know and that I've been exposed to that have moved to Austin, Florida, Incline Village, Nevada, where I actually live for several years. It's crazy, >> right? So, >> you know, why would you to do this? Now, this is all problem for the proletariat. This is just bribing voters to keep your seat. I don't think any of these politicians like Roan are actually as stupid as would appear from trying to do things that have never worked. I mean, your own, you know, political group here is trying to push socialism through it. What was it? Uh, Thomas Old said socialism is a concept so utterly and totally failed that only an intellectual could defend it. Zero success. This is I don't think these people are stupid. I think they are sly and I think it's how they buy votes and it's how they get people to believe maybe maybe this person will help me. Now yes there is a huge spread between the absolute dollars of rich and poor. However, the overall affluence and and just benefit provided to people on all income classes is higher than it has ever been in all of human history. And so how do you explain what's happening in not just in California but in all sorts of parts of the country as we're seeing the DSA whether it's here in New York whether it's in Ohio whether it's in uh >> I think it's youthful optimism my favorite quote about politics is if you're not a liberal when you're young you have no heart and if you're not a conservative when you're older you have no brain and right now my own youngest son thinks mommy is great and I want to ask him why but I really don't want to get into that fight um this is, you know, it's just, hey, here's money for you. Uh, now that money is never going to come, but you can promise it and get elected. This is time eternal. Politicians have lied about what they're going to do so that they can get elected and then not do it. I mean, Rose is an interesting example of this because here he goes out and he solicits money from the affluent tech class of Silicon Valley and then totally and completely betrays them and then they negotiate with them to try to get them back. >> I would disagree with that. But then the other issue is here we are at a time when the economy is growing as much as it is and we are running massive deficits. And so then the and by the way the entire Washington apparatus is run by one party right now. One party. So you have to say to you there has to be some introspection uh about how is this possible? How is it possible that the people who have argued that they are supposed to be responsible that they are the responsible party as it become as it comes to economics that we are now in a situation where the economy is growing as much as it supposedly is and yet we are running the deficits we are >> that is challenging and you know while one party's in charge one person is disproportionately in control of that party and I would say the word introspective is not in that human being's entire history of life and will not be until the he dies. So, it's tough. I mean, I think everybody likes to tax and spend at different levels. We are in a a tricky position here with this massive deficit, with just a crazy amount of bond issuance. I mean, I I made one trade ever in the blockchain space in 2014, decided not to play. >> Decided it was purely speculative, and I'm not a speculator. I'm a long-term investor. I would rather follow a Buffett model than a Soros model. But within the last year, I've bought a variety of different crypto-oriented assets because I'm very, very, very concerned with inflation. The scoop of ice cream I bought as a teenager is now eight times as expensive. I try to explain to my kids how inflation works. I paid a dollar for Hogenas, high quality ice cream, when I was a kid, and today I pay $8 for a scoop of gelato in New York City. That's inflation. It's crushing. So, look, if these things were fixable, they probably would have been fixed. Although I don't know that the politicians that we have or any that we'll ever get will be the ones to fix it because there's very few politicians that are there for the right reasons. >> Ben, want to thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> It's a long conversation. >> Next, can an artificial intelligence trained therapist help you? >> I would think AI companions might be part of the problem. Talkspace, a leading tea mental health platform, was recently acquired by a hospital system and CEO John Cohen says it can grow safely. >> 8 billion words, millions of interactions. It's anonymized, deidentified, consent, and data. >> SquawkPod will be right back. >> This is SquawkPod. >> Stand by Joe. His mic Q. >> You're watching Squawkbox on CNBC. I'm Joe Kernan along with Andrew Ross Sorcin. Hospital and healthc care manager Universal Health Services completed its acquisition uh of teleaotherapy platform Talkspace. That happened this week. Talkspace has been leveraging AI to fill gaps in the mental health care system. Joining us now, Dr. John Cohen, CEO of Talkspace. we were around before um uh AI and this is helping it uh helping your your business do more, but can you just give us a a quick rundown of exactly how Talkspace works and what needs it addresses and how? >> So, so Talkspace is uh right now the largest in network provider of mental health support um in terms of being in network with 220 million Americans including Medicare. So that was the big change for talkspace about 5 years ago. So that no longer became just a commercial product but it became a fee for service product that that's what fueled the growth of talkspace >> and and it helps people how so they they would >> so they yeah >> on the telephone. >> So uh so we provide virtual services only that could be texting and messaging. Uh talkspace did most of the original research to prove that you could text and message people to deliver therapy. uh the majority now is virtual face to face virtually um and then we do also phone calls but the majority 70% now are virtual visits the the AI uh >> sure segment so I could have a if I'm lonely I would think AI companions might be part of the problem not not part of the solution there's a way of doing it where where it's part of the solution where it doesn't make things worse >> I don't want to get dependent on Claude's very nice to me at times there's other times He blows me out. So I I understand. >> So So T, which is the talkspace developed, it's an AI u agent uh companion unlike large language model um chat bots that are supported by large language model um models. The T is actually specifically developed one to be safe. Uh it was also developed by mental health clinicians with oversight and things we call red teaming to prove that it actually works so that it would deliver a agent that you could have available 24/7 to navigate life's daily problems. The problem as you probably know is let's say 800 million people are now using chat bots weekly. 40% of those searches are healthcare related and half of them are mental health related. So that means 100 50 million people a week are using chat bots for daily problems that are coming up with them. The problem is is that they were never designed that way. They were never supposed to be developed and designed to deliver mental health. And as you've reported, many people have reported the results have been in some cases disastrous. T was purposely developed by Talkspace to address that issue to develop a safe model through a bunch of four different significant differentiators compared to everybody else that will make it easier to use and safe to use. So what we did is first the model was trained with our database. Uh Talkspace has probably at least the largest one of the largest mental health databases in the country. 8 billion words, millions of interactions. It's anonymized, deidentified, consented data that we use to train the large language model. That was first. Second, it's HIPPA compliant or hippotype compliant. Most people don't know when they're talking to a chatbot that information is out there. We designed it specifically like we did as a healthcare provider to be HIPPO protected. Third and probably as important is Talkspace back in 2018 reported on the first suicide algorithm, proprietary algorithm that actually could identify based on the conversation whether or not a patient is at risk for self harm. We've subsequently developed algorithms for homicide and violence, prediction of substance use, prediction of being abused at home, and five other big clinical entities including psychosis and OCD, hallucinations, eating disorders, etc. The reason that's important, that's been in play in use by Talkspace as part of its platform. We now use it in the AI platform. The reason that's important is we now know what's happening on the platform. We have clinical oversight. We have we call people in the loop, clinicians in the loop that are monitoring all the AI conversations. If there's an issue, a risk alert goes off, we make a decision, real or not real, do we need to intervene? Does a clinician need to take you off the platform or do we need to actually refer you or actually do a wellness check, send the police? So, it is truly a safe model that's been developed and it's the only safe model that's out there. So technology, we complain a lot that it's part of the problem. >> You think in this case it could be part of of of the solution. >> So I like to tell people >> net I think we're still losing social media and everything else. That's why we're in this mess right now. That's why people need, you know, how many young young women have I I heard the teenage women have considered suicide? It's like this ridiculous number that that that I can't even get my my head around. So just to address the suicide since since we put the suicide algorithm in place we've had close to 60,000 alerts right that's since 2018 we have a program we we run the largest mental health support program for teens in the country 500,000 teens in this country have access to talk space for free because our government contract since we've put that in place we've had close to a thousand moderate to highlevel suicide alerts just to give you an idea on the suicide thing. So, let's go back to the chat bots. The genie's out of the bottle. You like to say horses left the barn, trains left, whatever you want to say. >> Toothpaste is out of the whatever metaphor you want to use, you're not going to stop this. Our issue though is if you're going to use it and people are using, we're talking to psychiatrists and therapists every day who are saying after my session, the patient's coming back with next session and say, "Oh, by the way, in between my session, I'm using X chatbot." Our plea is to develop a safe model that sets a new standard so that you use a safe model if you're going to use it in between. You're not going to stop it. The question is is can you develop which we did a technology solution that'll help in between sessions or when you're going to use it. Um and quite honestly the results have been fairly remarkable. We did a we did a beta test of 2,000. We now have about another 10,000 people who are using the AI agent. Um and it's been really interesting. So what do people go on for? They go on for relationships. Or I wake up in the morning, I had an argument, I'm upset about my child in school, you know, something is going on that's really bothering me at work. So one, it's relationships. Second, anxiety, depression, uh, and a fair degree of stress, low self-esteem. The other is compulsive behavior that's stigmatized. So what I mean by that, a lot of people nowadays are found it acceptable to see a therapist. It's no longer as much as stigma. they used to be 20 years ago. >> Mhm. >> The problem is is that there is behavior that you won't tell your therapist. So, first off, we found that men are much more likely to use an agent than women. Women are much more likely to use live therapy than an agent. Having said that, there's a fair amount of stigma stigmatized behavior that occurs. It is is it problems with relationships at at at work? >> Well, yeah. So my question is >> were you going to ask about me or >> when I talk to uh you know my my wife jokes you know you're talking to your girlfriend Claudette uh u you know my question as in so my question is how different and and I will ask it lots I will ask large language models all sorts of questions >> about self-esteem >> how to deal with this how to deal with that >> you never ask about me >> how do I deal with Joe Carin today how am I going to deal with Joe Carton I I have to ask that's every day actually like on the hour and So the question is um how different is the reaction that I might be getting from from one of the models >> different than what I'd be getting from you? >> Highly significantly different. First off, >> it's trained in mental health to deal with the issues. You know, mental health therapy is is there's a reason people are licensed. The reason why psychiatrists are trained to figure out how to deliver it. Um, so the answers you're going to get, you're what you're not going to get from tea is the delusional pathways, the hallucinations, the bad results that happen. You know, it's >> I like to say it's mirror mirror on the wall from Snow White. You know, it's the cracked mirror syndrome. Like you don't want something to continue to validate something that you want to be in reality right? >> The problem people have is they go down the delusional pathway. >> Okay. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Uh, thank you. and we were seeing it played out in in real time um with this crazy >> well she now it's it's an it's a metaphor for all that's wrong with the mental health instead of the poor kids that that are were strangled we're now thinking that it's not her fault. It's bizarre what what what we're seeing. The good news is there are people who have cancer, postpartum depression, they have weight loss, they have financial concerns that are going on to these chat agents, >> right? And the answer is is give them a real answer. >> Right. Okay. >> Just so you know, >> I just asked it because on the hour I asked I say, "How can I handle working with Joe Curtain?" That's what I asked Claude or Claudet. says, "The Sorcin Kernan dynamic has always worked on air precisely because it's genuine friction. Viewers can tell neither of you is performing disagreement." >> Performing performing in other words. So, it's real. >> It's real. >> It's real. >> So, that you were hoping for. >> It's much longer. It goes says if there's a specific >> I'm going to ask about you. >> Okay. We can we can we can you should ask T. >> Yeah, I'll ask T. >> Thank you. And that is Squawk Pod for today and for the week. It's Friday. Thanks for listening. Squawkbox is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorcin. Great to have the guys back together again today. You can tune in weekday mornings on CNBC starting at 6 Eastern. To get the smartest takes and analysis from our TV show right into your ears, follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. We'll meet you right back here on Monday. Have a great weekend. And we are clear. Thanks guys.