Lever Time - Premium

On this week’s episode of Lever Time Premium: A few weeks ago, House Republicans passed a bill to cancel new Internal Revenue Service funding. David Sirota sits down with journalist and tax policy expert Jesse Eisinger, who provides much-needed context on the GOP’s push to defund one of our most integral government agencies. (Yes, the IRS really is necessary.) Jesse explains how the modest investments passed by Democrats would help the beleaguered IRS hold accountable our worst tax cheats and create billions of dollars in new revenue, and how Republican efforts to defund the agency would lead to even more of its chronically lax oversight (12:08).

Then, on this week’s bonus segment, Producer Frank, Matthew Cunningham-Cook, and Julia Rock discuss the “One Thing” that’s been on their minds recently: artificial intelligence. ChatGPT, a new AI-driven chatbot, has been caught writing essays for college students and even passed the final exam for Wharton’s MBA program. The Lever journalists discuss the implications of advanced AI and what it could mean for the future of academia and language-based professions (40:33).

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A rough transcript of this episode is available here.