Todd Young

U.S. Senator (R-IN) · 2 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Todd Young is a U.S. Senator representing Indiana. He advocates for open innovation, American leadership in AI research, public-private partnerships, and modernizing foster care placement processes.

18statements → 11claims → 5claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 3.56/5average certainty → 2.39/5average debate potential → 3said about them ↓

4 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 6 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 9 assertions · 4 opinions · 3 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, and 6 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Todd argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Senator Young: Only 10 of 80 federal social programs rigorously studied
“There are roughly, depending upon one, how one counts the different social support programs, 80 federal social support programs. Only 10 have ever been rigorously studied using the gold standard, randomized controlled trials across multiple sites. Can you imag…”
Todd Young Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 9:51 a16z Podcast | Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
88% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

223 words/min while actually speaking · 56.5 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Todd Young: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,744 words across 2 episodes of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

Everything Todd Young said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sen. Todd Young: The US is already behind in national security AI
“And then there'll be some things, as you heard about earlier today, that deal with national security where we're already behind.”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 4:38 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Opinion
Sen. Todd Young: Lawmakers are using AI to push decades-old tech bills
“So I do think that some are either confused. There are others who are just probably using the opportunity of this legislative effort, which is ahead of us to lever, to try and pass bills that they had prepared two decades ago.”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 9:59 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Opinion
Sen. Todd Young: The probability of AI doom is low but non-zero
“Yeah, I, low, but not non-existent. Yeah. Which is how most of the, You know, doomsday scenarios are. They're low probability, high cost, and we need to hedge against them, but I think, let me say this, the first step in hedging against them is to really seek …”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 23:09 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sen. Todd Young: AI will reduce overall existential risk long-term
“I'm gonna, I think, here's what we're probably gonna have. We're gonna have, in the short run, some unsteadiness. Yeah. Right? Because we're trying to learn countermeasures. We're trying to figure out how systems work. We're trying to figure out all sorts of t…”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 23:59 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Assertion Supported
Senator Young: Only 10 of 80 federal social programs rigorously studied
“There are roughly, depending upon one, how one counts the different social support programs, 80 federal social support programs. Only 10 have ever been rigorously studied using the gold standard, randomized controlled trials across multiple sites. Can you imag…”
Todd Young Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 9:51 a16z Podcast | Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sen. Todd Young: US Senators agree AI regulation must be light-touch
“There was a general embrace by my colleagues after they heard from the world's best minds that we needed to regulate, but it would have to be a light touch approach.”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 2:59 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Insight
Sen. Todd Young: Regulators catastrophize whole tech sectors instead of specific outcomes
“I think there's a tendency to catastrophize different technology areas as opposed to different potential outcomes.”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 6:43 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Insight
Sen. Todd Young: AI regulation should be tech-agnostic and target prohibited behaviors
“Historically the reason one of the many reasons we've been a dynamic country and created a favorable regulatory atmosphere for our technology developing businesses is We have laws that reflect our values and we apply those laws to technologies only if they run…”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 6:53 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Assertion Supported
Sen. Young: CHIPS Act spurred $200B private capital before $1B federal spending
“Over two hundred billion dollars of private capital is, has been invested. And we're not even at a billion dollars even close to it of federal monies that has been released.”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 19:00 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Assertion Partly supported
Sen. Todd Young: DOE labs developed fracking tech before private industry
“I look at the innovations that have occurred through our DOE labs, like the one you worked at like the one that developed fracking technology before the frackers claimed it their own right?”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 20:40 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Opinion
Sen. Todd Young: Traditional congressional hearings fail on complex issues like AI
“So if we had gone the traditional route in trying to address artificial intelligence issues, that would have meant that a number of committees of jurisdiction would have started to hold hearings on artificial intelligence in a very public way. Members of their…”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 0:50 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Prediction Held up
Sen. Todd Young: Bipartisan AI legislation will advance in coming months
“And so all of those things are among the things that I think in coming months will be addressed through the committees of jurisdiction in a bipartisan way. If politics doesn't get in the way. And as it relates to most of this, I don't think it will.”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 4:47 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Opinion
Sen. Todd Young: CHIPS Act research funding outmatches semiconductor incentives
“Arguably that will even be more consequential towards our economic security and our national security in the longer run than will the chips piece.”
Todd Young Mar 5, 2024 ▶ 15:30 Why America Must Lead in AI Investment
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Young: Government programs track inputs rather than human outcomes
“And our government programs, typically they don't measure outcomes. They may measure inputs.”
Todd Young Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:00 a16z Podcast | Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care
Insight
Sen. Young: Government should embed private sector predictive analytics into welfare programs
“I think that the private sector can help government better understand its own problems by embedding predictive analytics into some of our programs. We could do that in our social programs. And then on the back end of it is rapid cycle evaluation to determine w…”
Todd Young Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 16:58 a16z Podcast | Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Senator Young: Randomized controlled trials for social programs now cost $100,000
“You can do a randomized controlled trial for about you know, a hundred grand now”
Todd Young Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 17:46 a16z Podcast | Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care
Assertion Supported
Senator Young: Opioid crisis overloaded Indiana's foster care system
“This is ground zero for the opioid crisis, and what has happened is so many children of opiate addicts find themselves in our foster care system. It's overloaded Indiana's foster care system”
Todd Young Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 0:41 a16z Podcast | Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Senator Young: Interstate foster care system is slow, paper-based, and opaque
“Some of the problems, just to very quickly itemize them, it's a paper-based system, so it's really slow. Extra costs are associated with looking through the paperwork for staffing, and then for equipment, and supplies, and maintenance of all the records. And t…”
Todd Young Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 1:10 a16z Podcast | Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care

The other half of the tape: Todd Young's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 3 episodes on the a16z Podcast. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Steph Smith 1Martin Casado 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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0232024episodes it came up in
000.51.5132024episodesmentions per episode
2024 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Why America Must Lead in AI Investment Mar 5, 2024 16m
a16z Podcast | Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care Jan 2, 2019 9m
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