More than 8,000 people flocked to the Erie Insurance Arena on Tuesday to listen to a conversation with former President Barack Obama that touched on a wide variety of topics like the state of democracy, rising global tensions, the future of artificial intelligence and his advice for younger generations.

The event, titled “A Conversation with President Barack Obama,” was hosted by the Jefferson Educational Society, a nonprofit that JES President Ferki Ferati described as “Erie’s think tank for community progress.”

Obama’s talk kicked off JES’ 17th annual Global Summit, a series that brings internationally renowned speakers to the Erie region.

Ferati summed up the goal of the series as “think globally, learn locally.”

After cracking a few jokes and praising northwestern Pennsylvania for its natural beauty, Obama settled into his gray leather armchair and began considering some of the recent events that have captured national attention.

Moderator Steve Scully, a senior executive producer for C-SPAN, started the conversation by bringing up the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Obama said the U.S. is “certainly” at an inflection point and said that while he did not personally know Charlie Kirk and did not agree with many of his viewpoints, his assassination was an “evil act.”

“Political violence is not new,” Obama said. “It has happened at certain periods in our history, but it is something that is anathema to what it means to be a democratic country.”

“Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum,” he continued, “what happened to Charlie Kirk was horrific and a tragedy.”

However, Obama cautioned that while political violence should be condemned, being the victim of political violence does not automatically give merit to one’s ideas. He cited examples like Kirk’s belief that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a “mistake” and that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an “awful” person.

Obama proceeded to condemn some of the extreme rhetoric and actions coming out of the Trump administration, including breaking down judicial rulings, deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles and destroying the trust a government needs to run.

“When we have the weight of the United States government behind extremist views,” Obama said, “we have a problem.”

“Democracy is not self-executing,” he continued. “It depends on us as citizens, regardless of our political affiliations, to stand up for our core values. Otherwise, we may not have them anymore.”
Obama praised Republicans like former President George W. Bush and senators John McCain and Mitt Romney for their commitment to integrity in their political work.

Scully then asked Obama for his perspective on how social media is influencing the political moment. Recalling the post-World War II era, Obama reflected on the drastic social changes that came in the wake of a “succession of world-altering crises.”

Obama warned about the dangers of thinking in terms of the “blood and soil nationalism” that the Nazi regime fought for during WWII.

Obama partially attributed current political tensions to the past few decades of globalization, increasing inequality, changing demographics — including the growing diversity of people in Congress — and a rapidly evolving technology and media landscape.

“Bipartisanship worked well in Washington when everyone looked the same,” he said.

Despite the growing tensions and fierce political battles that occurred from the 1980s to 2000s, Obama said what sets that era apart from the present moment is that both political parties were committed to certain foundational principles of democracy.

“The rules of the game held,” Obama explained. “I think what distinguishes us at this moment is a decision that’s been building for a while — in this White House and the party that controls both the White House and Congress — that we’re ok with breaking the rules, breaking the system in certain ways.”

“What you’re seeing, I think, is the sense that through executive powers, many of the guardrails and norms that I had to abide by as president of the United States, that George Bush thought he had to abide by as president of the United States — they no longer apply,” Obama continued. “That’s what makes this a dangerous moment.”

In an interview after the speech, Emily Bowers, a Gannon student who attended the event, appreciated the tact Obama employed.

“I was really impressed. He was really well spoken and he did a good job addressing current issues and events,” Bowers said. “I really liked how he emphasized the person over the politics; I thought that was a really powerful message.”

Elias Ortiz, a New Jersey resident who was in the audience, mentioned Obama’s points about freedom of speech and political polarization as important takeaways.

“In our day and age, (free speech) has tried to be silenced in some ways,” Ortiz said. “I feel like our freedom of speech is not what it was when it was first introduced in our Constitution.”

Over halfway through the hour-long event, an audience member stood up and began yelling at Obama to address Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, which an independent United Nations inquiry concluded on Monday, Sept. 15, for the first time is a genocide.

Obama reminded the audience member that he is no longer in charge of U.S. foreign policy, before going on to condemn both the actions of Hamas on Oct. 7 and Israel’s continued withholding of basic resources like food and shelter for Gaza residents.

Shifting gears, Scully then asked Obama about his thoughts on artificial intelligence.

“AI, based on what I’ve seen and heard, is going to be more disruptive than social media or the internet, and it’s going to happen faster,” Obama said.

In a recent conversation with an executive of a leading artificial intelligence company, Obama said the executive told him that the technological revolution artificial intelligence is bringing about can only be compared to one other technology: electricity. The crowd of 8,000 in the arena broke out into murmurs as Obama relayed the anecdote.

Acknowledging the plethora of uncertainties, Obama focused on the potential benefits of AI, including its potential to discover a cure for cancer and develop zero-emission carbon solutions. However, he also acknowledged the “non-zero” chance that AI may end with humanity “bowing to our robot masters.”

“I don’t think it’s likely,” Obama reassured the crowd. “But people who develop it, I think we should make sure we know how to turn off the switch.”

The more likely risk, Obama explained, is the weaponization of the technology by rogue states or terrorists. Additionally, he said it is almost certain that artificial intelligence will be economically disruptive, pointing out that recent college graduates are already facing greater difficulty finding entry-level jobs. Obama also said that with artificial intelligence, existing social media challenges will be “turbocharged.”

“If you think it’s hard right now to figure out what’s true and what’s false, it’s going to get harder,” he warned, before calling on elected officials to democratically guide the technology’s development and not let the five biggest AI companies make all the major decisions.

To close out the conversation, Scully asked Obama what advice he has for the next generation.

Obama encouraged young people to be nice to their parents, challenged them to learn about what they believe in and care deeply about and to develop a code of ethics that will act as a North Star in their lives.

“This next generation, they are smart,” Obama said. “They feel and care deeply about people. Their instincts are to steward our environment. Their instincts are to reach out to people who aren’t necessarily exactly like them. They’re sophisticated.

“Part of our job,” he continued, “is to give them some lessons from our experience, to give them a hand up as they’re coming up, and then get out of the way.”