KQED's Forum

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Rivlin spent more than a year in the Bay Area shadowing the founders and venture capitalists vying to make big money off of generative AI. And in his new book “AI Valley,” Rivlin takes readers inside both the AI startups and the tech giants like Microsoft, Meta and Google trying to keep up. He chronicles the figures and breakthroughs of generative AI’s recent history – in order to better predict and understand its future. Rivlin’s new book is “AI Valley: Microsoft, Google, and the Trillion-Dollar Race to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence.” Guests: Gary Rivlin, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author, “AI Valley: Microsoft, Google, and the Trillion-Dollar Race to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Votes are still being tallied for Oakland’s Special Election that will determine who will finish out the term left vacant after former mayor Sheng Thao was recalled last fall. As of Wednesday, former Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor held a narrow lead over former U.S. representative Barbara Lee. Taylor campaigned as someone who knows the local issues and politics and can move the city forward. Lee represented Oakland in Congress for nearly 27 years and promised to bring more funding to address the city’s pressing needs. Final results could take several weeks using Oakland’s ranked-choice voting system. We’ll look at the latest results and talk about this unusual race and the future of Oakland. Guests: Darwin BondGraham, news editor, Oaklandside Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter, KQED Shomik Mukherjee, Oakland reporter, Bay Area News Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs caused chaos in financial markets and left investors scrambling. But who’s profiting from the turmoil? Democrats are calling for investigations into whether the President, his family or members of Congress used insider information to benefit from the stock market’s swings. We delve into allegations that some lawmakers are making money off Trump’s trade war and discuss the calls for accountability. Guests: Representative Mike Levin, representing California's 49th district, including southern Orange County and north San Diego County Maria Aspan, finance correspondent, NPR Erin Mansfield, democracy reporter, USA Today Robert Faturechi, reporter, ProPublica Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a sweeping executive order, Donald Trump has taken aim at efforts by states, including California, to set their own environmental policies. At risk are key components of California’s fight against climate change including its cap and trade program to control carbon emissions and efforts to promote electrical vehicles. Trump’s order is just the latest in his moves to reverse climate change policies, including halting government research funding and gutting environmental agencies. As his head of the Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin has said, the administration is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” We’ll talk about the impact of Trump’s approach to the environment and how California could respond. Guests: Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law; podcast host, Climate Break Sonia Aggarwal, CEO, Energy Innovation - a non partisan think tank based in San Francisco that provides research and analysis on energy and climate policy; special assistant, to the President for Climate Policy, Innovation, and Deployment in the Biden administration. Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk, New York Times Abigail Dillen, president, Earthjustice - a public interest law group focused on the environment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tens of thousands of immigrants received notices last week from the Department of Homeland Security that their temporary legal statuses would be terminated in seven days. But many immigration experts say the migrants have legal grounds to remain. This comes after a New York Times investigation found that the Social Security Administration listed more than 6,300 migrants as dead to effectively cancel their access to financial services. We’ll talk about the latest developments in the Trump administration’s approach to immigration — one that’s been more reliant on revoking legal statuses and encouraging self-deportation than on the mass deportations promised on the campaign trail. Guests: Hamed Aleaziz, covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy, The New York Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When tech writer Vauhini Vara was struggling to process her sister’s death in 2021, she asked an early version of ChatGPT to write about it through an increasingly complex series of prompts. The essays in her collection, “Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age” build on her conversations with AI, enlisting its help to grapple with what it means to be human when our thoughts, our words — and with them, our very humanity — are filtered through machines. We talk to Vara about how technological capitalism is redefining what it means to be human. Guests: Vauhini Vara, tech journalist and novelist; her new collection of essays is “Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Off the coast of Sausalito lies one of the nation’s oldest unhoused communities. Known as “anchor-outs,” residents live aboard makeshift boats moored in the bay, carving out a precarious existence. For nearly a decade, author Joe Kloc immersed himself in their world, documenting their struggles and growing tensions with shoreline residents determined to push them out. We talk to Kloc about his new book “Lost At Sea: Poverty and Paradise Collide at the Edge of America.” Guests: Joe Kloc, senior editor, Harper's Magazine - author of “Lost At Sea: Poverty and Paradise Collide at the Edge of America” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. economy has been rattled by back-and-forth tariff policies, a seesawing stock market, and concerns about inflation continuing to rise. Americans are worried about their job security, retirement funds, and the rising costs of goods from groceries to SUVs. We talk with financial experts to help us make sense of the economic uncertainty and how it should affect our financial choices. Are you doing anything differently in response to tariffs, inflation or market fluctuations? Guests: Jessica Roy, personal finance and utility columnist, San Francisco Chronicle Ramit Sethi, personal finance expert; author, "I Will Teach You To Be Rich"; host, "I Will Teach You To Be Rich" podcast and the Netflix series "How to Get Rich" Susannah Snider, managing editor for money, U.S. News Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann says he chooses what to write about based on what he most wants to know. His latest novel “Twist” springs from his fascination with the underwater cables, no thicker than a garden hose, that carry some 95% of the world’s telecommunications. McCann’s protagonist is a journalist who goes asea to investigate a cable break off the coast of Africa after the Congo River floods. We talk to McCann about themes of sabotage and repair – both in the abyssal zone he writes about and in our lives. Guest: Colum McCann, author, “Twist”; His other novels include “Apeirogon,” “Transatlantic” and “Let the Great World Spin,” which won a National Book Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“An artist is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special,” said San Francisco artist Ruth Asawa. From her studio in her home in Noe Valley, Asawa created crocheted wire sculptures whose shadows are just as evocative as the art itself. But as the mother of six, Asawa was also passionate about arts education and teaching. As a new retrospective of her work and life opens at SF MOMA, we talk about Asawa’s legacy as an artist, teacher, and community member as part of our Bay Area Legends series. Guests: Janet Bishop, Thomas Weisel Family chief curator, SFMOMA; She co-curated the exhibition Ruth Asawa: Retrospective Terry Kochanski, executive director, SCRAP - a nonprofit education and creative reuse center based in the Bayview and founded in 1976 Andrea Jepson, close friend of Ruth Asawa; Jepson served as the model for the fountain "Andrea" in Ghiradelli Square, and also worked with Asawa on her public school education projects Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday when President Trump backtracked and announced a 90-day pause on the sweeping tariffs he unveiled last week, dropping the duty rate to 10% for most countries. But it’s little reprieve for California farmers who export crops like almonds and pistachios to China. Trump has raised the taxes on imports from China to 125%, and further retaliatory tariffs from China are expected to follow. The California almond industry alone lost nearly $900 million from the trade war with China in Trump’s first term. We’ll check in with farmers and an economist on the ongoing turmoil’s effects on the agriculture industry, nationwide and here in California. And we’ll hear what it all could mean for your grocery prices. Guests: Marcia Brown, food and agriculture reporter, POLITICO Colin Carter, distinguished professor of agricultural and resource economics, UC Davis Joe Del Bosque, CEO, Del Bosque family Farms in the San Joaquin Valley Zach Pelka, co-founder and COO, Une Femme wines based out of Sonoma Josh Harder, U.S. representative for California's 9th Congressional District, covering San Joaquin County as well as parts of Stanislaus and Contra Costa counties Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Viet Thanh Nguyen came to the United States as a 4-year-old refugee after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. His family eventually settled in San Jose. Nguyen went on to become a Pulitzer Prize-Winning novelist and memoirist whose books center the experience of Vietnamese people. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, we’ll reflect on the war’s lasting impact and what we have – and have not – learned from it. And we’ll talk about his new book of essays, “To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other,” which explores the role of artists in political discourse. Guests: Viet Thanh Nguyen, author and professor at USC. His latest book is a collection of essays, "To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other." His previous books include the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Sympathizer," "The Committed," and the memoir, “A Man of Two Faces." Bryan Vo, Forum intern Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Four of California’s largest home insurers are knowingly using faulty data to set coverage limits, according to a new San Francisco Chronicle investigation. It means that wildfire survivors who thought they’d be made whole after losing their homes are discovering they can’t afford to rebuild. We talk to the reporters behind the investigation and hear how you can find out if your California home is underinsured. And we want to hear from you: Do you have a story about being underinsured? Guests: Megan Fan Munce, reporter covering California’s home insurance crisis, The San Francisco Chronicle Susie Neilson, investigative reporter, The San Francisco Chronicle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is scaling back a key part of the city’s harm reduction strategy: the free distribution of clean foil pipes and plastic straws in public settings. These supplies are typically used to smoke fentanyl or methamphetamines. We talk to addiction specialists about how this policy change might impact drug use in the city. Guests: Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford School of Medicine Tyler TerMeer, CEO, San Francisco AIDS Foundation Sydney Johnson, reporter, KQED News Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been two years this month since fighting broke out between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, leading to a devastating civil war that’s so far killed more than 150,000 people and displaced 13 million while causing the world’s worst famine in decades. The New York Times was the first Western outlet to report from the center of the Sudanese capital since the war erupted. We talk to chief Africa correspondent Declan Walsh about where the war stands and the humanitarian impact. Guests: Declan Walsh, chief Africa correspondent, The New York Times - based in Nairobi, Kenya Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After six long years, The San Francisco Chronicle has revived its annual Top 100 Restaurants list. Critics MacKenzie Chung Fegan and Cesar Hernandez join us to share their picks, their process, and their personal food obsessions. We’ll take a tour of the restaurants that made this year’s list, and dish about what makes a restaurant truly “top” – from Michelin-worthy tasting menus to perfectly grilled fish tacos. What Bay Area restaurant would you rank #1? Guests: MacKenzie Chung Fegan, restaurant critic, The San Francisco Chronicle Cesar Hernandez, associate restaurant critic, The San Francisco Chronicle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clinicians and scientists are sounding alarms as the Trump administration slashes budgets at federal health agencies, including the NIH, which is the largest funder of cancer research in the world. We talk about the costs of the cuts, which researchers say could set back progress on treatments and cures by decades and jeopardize patients with advanced forms of cancer who rely on experimental clinical trials. Guests: Angus Chen, cancer reporter, STAT News Dr. Adil Daud, oncologist and melanoma specialist, UCSF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The global economy and U.S. markets have been reeling since President Trump announced a sweeping package of tariffs on Wednesday. China retaliated late Friday with a matching tariff, further nosediving the stock market and escalating the trade war. Economists predict the expansive tariffs will raise prices and impact jobs, and potentially lead to a recession and upend the global economy. We’ll talk to experts about why markets are reacting the way they are, and what it might mean for the future of the global economy. Guests: Stephanie Flanders, senior executive editor, Bloomberg; head of Bloomberg Economics Lori Wallach, director, Rethink Trade program at American Economic Liberties Project; senior advisor; Citizens Trade Campaign Kyle Handley, associate professor of economics, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego; director, Center for Commerce and Diplomacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Has someone you love ever been enmeshed in online conspiracy theories? Podcast host Zach Mack’s father fell deep into a rabbit hole and wagered Mack $10,000 that 10 of his far-fetched political and apocalyptic beliefs would come true within the year. Mack created a podcast about the experience called “Alternate Realities,” which New York Magazine has already named one of the best of the year. We talk to Mack about what he learned from the bet and what it was like trying to disentangle his father from the conspiracy theories he embraced. And we’ll hear from UCSF clinical psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Pierre about how to talk with loved ones in the grips of conspiratorial thinking. Guests: Zach Mack, producer of the podcast, "Alternate Realities" Dr. Joe Pierre, health sciences clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF; he is the author of “False: How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Make Us Believe Things That Aren't True" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Oakland in ‘87 was hella wild.” So begins the new movie “Freaky Tales,” which establishes its bonafides by having rap legend Too $hort as its narrator. Told in four chapters, the film weaves together punks, rappers, Nazis, and the Warriors, with clutch cameos from local legends. We’ll talk to its director and some of the people whose wild stories inspired the movie. Prepare yourself, we’re popping in the cassette tape and readying the time machine. Guests: Gabe Meline, senior editor, KQED Arts and Culture Tamra Goins, talent agent, Innovative Artists; Goins performed as Entice in the rap duo Dangerzone, which is featured in the movie "Freaky Tales" Too $hort, Oakland-based West Coast rap legend, producer and founder of OG records; Too $hort is the narrator and executive producer of the movie "Freaky Tales," a love letter to late 1980s Oakland Ryan Fleck, filmmaker and co-director of the movie "Freaky Tales," Fleck and his co-director Anna Boden's credits include "Captain Marvel," "Half Nelson," "Sugar" and "It's Kind of a Funny Story," among other films; Fleck grew up in Berkeley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices