How AI Will Enhance Human Potential, Not Replace It (Reid Hoffman)

[00:00] As we develop AI, how does that change our epistemology of the world? If our AI is saying something that we don't really fully understand, what does that mean? It becomes an article of faith where you're like, hey, look, it's really intelligent. It can't explain it to my puny biological mind. Maybe that will be a new form of thinking and that what that means for epistemology, what it means for reasoning, what it means for deducing ontology, metaphysics, what is actually really there may have new landscape in it. [00:30] As part of this kind of thesis that I've been advancing that we're Homo techni than Homo sapiens is because we're already forms a cyborg. AI is just on this. It's a sort of a different species that is operating on a very different time scale. You know, in some number of centuries, maybe decades, maybe millennia, those new entities are to us like we are to squirrels. We are so satiated, so amused by our magical devices that we've opiated ourselves. [01:00] The dialogue around AI is so often just dominated by all of the fears, concerns, uncertainties, risks, and you don't get the future that you want by eliminating the futures you don't want. You get the future you want by conceptualizing and imagining it and going towards it. [01:22] Hey, welcome to The Generalist Podcast. I'm your host, Mario. You might have heard the saying, "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet."

[01:30] Our goal with this podcast is to distribute the future a little more evenly by having conversations with the people that see it first. They live in it. They are building it. They're investing in it. To that end, I'm so excited about today's episode with Reid Hoffman. [01:45] Reid needs no introduction. He is the founder of LinkedIn, part of the PayPal mafia, [01:51] has played a key role with companies like OpenAI, [01:54] and of course has been an extremely successful investor [01:58] at Greylock. [01:59] He's also a prolific [02:00] writer and podcaster. [02:02] His new book, Super Agency: What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future, [02:07] is out now. [02:08] And we talk about it in today's episode. [02:10] He's also, of course, the co-host of The Possible Podcast. [02:14] Today's conversation with Reed was as fascinating as I knew it would be. [02:18] We talk a lot about how to get the best out of AI, what we need, [02:22] to do to steer it towards the most productive and [02:26] beneficial future [02:28] We also dig into some really interesting philosophical questions. [02:31] What does it mean to have AI friends? [02:33] What will it mean when we are in complete symbiosis with this superintelligence such that it's [02:39] living in our brains with [02:41] brain-computer interfaces. What happens when we start to [02:44] genetically edit embryos. [02:46] to keep up [02:47] with this super intelligence. [02:49] We also talk a lot about science fiction and narrative. [02:52] the stories we tell about the future and how it both [02:56] Reflects. [02:57] the reality of our current technology, [02:59] and helps us build it.

[03:01] Finally, we dig into how Reed uses this technology [03:04] himself, [03:04] and how we might use it too. [03:06] We also cover what experiments [03:08] Reed would run with unlimited resources and no operational constraints. [03:13] what sci-fi and philosophy books we should [03:15] read to meet this current moment, and what customs we might borrow from other eras [03:21] or cultures. [03:22] I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. [03:24] this episode is brought to you by vanta warren buffett once said it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it for today's digital companies those five minutes have shrunk to milliseconds [03:38] This asymmetry is why trust isn't just earned, it's demanded. If you're building a business, you likely know that proving compliance is needed to win bigger deals, enter new markets, [03:49] and deepen trust with customers. [03:50] but that it can cost you real time and money. [03:54] by automating up to 90% of the work needed for SOC 2, [03:58] ISO 27001 [04:00] HIPAA, and more, [04:02] Vanta gets you compliant fast. [04:04] opening doors to next level growth opportunities. [04:07] Not only does Vantus save you time, [04:09] It also saves you money. [04:11] A new IDC white paper found that Vanta customers achieve $535,000 per year in benefits. [04:19] and that the platform pays for itself in just three months. [04:22] Over 10,000 companies like Atlassian, Factory, and Chili Piper use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. [04:30] My listeners can get $1,000 off Vanta at vanta.com slash mario.

[04:36] That's V-A-N-T-A [04:37] dot com slash Mario for $1,000 off. [04:43] This episode is brought to you by Brex. Fred Adler, the influential venture capitalist of the 1970s, was known for displaying decorative pillows in his office that featured a signature business philosophy. [04:56] Corporate happiness is positive cash flow. [04:59] In today's post-SERP environment, Adler's wisdom feels particularly relevant. [05:04] as founders need to make every dollar work harder. [05:06] That's exactly what Brex delivers. [05:09] Their modern finance platform was built specifically [05:12] for startups like yours. [05:13] and designed to help extend your runway when capital efficiency matters most. [05:18] With Brex, [05:20] You get global corporate cards with up to 20x higher credit limits [05:23] and no personal guarantee required. [05:26] Their banking solution has no minimums and no transaction fees. [05:29] while letting you earn high yield from day one. [05:32] with same-day liquidity. [05:34] Best of all, Brex knows you were born to build, not juggle spreadsheets and finance tools. [05:40] Their AI-powered platform brings cards, banking, [05:43] expense management, and travel all in one place. [05:47] It's simple. [05:47] Scalable. [05:48] and designed to get you back to what you do best. [05:51] building. [05:53] More than 30,000 companies, including one in three U.S. venture-backed startups, trust Brex to help make every dollar count toward their mission. Join them at brex.com slash Mario.

[06:07] Reid, it is so lovely to have you here. And I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this conversation. Me as well. We've obviously been doing these things in writing over time, but in person, awesome. Yeah. So much more high fidelity. One of the things that I'm excited to talk about today is of course your new book, Super Agency. I'd love to start with just why you felt that this was something that you wanted to write and maybe a little bit of the thrust of the main argument. You know, very retro publishing a book, you know, it's kind of like, hey, let's go [06:37] But part of it's that the dialogue around AI is so often just dominated by all of the fears, concerns, uncertainties, risks, you know, and you don't get the future that you want by eliminating the futures you don't want. [06:54] You get the future you want by conceptualizing and imagining it and going towards it. And so, I wanted to put a very strong kind of like, "Stake in the ground is too weak," like fireworks. Speak it into existence. Yeah. Like an obelisk to say, "No, this dialogue that we have of fear uncertainty happens every single time that we have with general purpose technologies. It happened in the printing press, it happened with the car, it happened with the mainframe computer, it happened [07:24] Each time, and yet the human amplification is so great afterwards, even with the dialogue that's very parallel to AI, it then creates this amazing increase in human agency. And part of the reason to choose the title agency is what people are always worried about is the loss of human agency, the loss of their own agency, whether it's job and work, whether it's privacy, whether it's information, and the loss of agency as a society.

[07:54] that [07:55] enhances those worries. So I wanted to say is like, actually, in fact, I have reasoned, highly rational, deep confidence that when we get into the mid game in this, this will be a massive increase in human agency. I didn't cover as much of the worries around transitions in the book that I think is a very legitimate thing. And I think, you know, when I say it's the cognitive industrial revolution that we're going to see the same kind of productivity increase in the human amplification, [08:25] that we're going to get, the transition is going to be not fun, for sure. We as human beings adopt new general purpose technologies, generally speaking, very badly. Right? So now- [08:39] That also gives us the right opportunity. Because like, well, can we do this one better? Can we do it with more grace, more humanity, more humanism? [08:47] And then super agency is not only when we get superpowers, when Mario gets superpowers or Reed gets superpowers, but when many of us all at the same time get superpowers, we as a society get superpowers. [09:00] And that's part of the elevation of society that you see through electricity, you see through the printing press, you see through kind of- Personal computers. Personal computers. It makes an entirely new society and new industries. And that's what we should be steering towards. In many ways, this is a history book. You go through sort of so many of these technological waves and it is so, we can laugh at it now from our position, but seeing The Economist, I think you cite in there,

[09:30] worst thing possible and they're in favor of the horse and all of these sort of things. It's so interesting. I was interested to see that your last book, Impromptu, you wrote with ChatGPT. This time you upgraded to Greg Bito. Why did you fire ChatGPT for this one? Well, ChatGPT was in the background and both Greg and I were using ChatGPT. But as opposed to, like when we did Impromptu, part of the theory of it was to not just tell our readers and the world [10:00] but to show it. And the best way to show it was kind of the prompting and the text. So it became part of the Chrome. Like something like 40% of the words in Impromptu are chat GBT words. Right? So now here we wanted to actually create something that was more of, because the super agency is a human agency amplification. [10:21] We wanted, again, part of the showing as well as telling is, sure, we're using AI to help us do research, to help us to cross-check, to argue against us, to say, hey, this paragraph seems boring. Would you punch it up a little bit? What would you give us? Give me three options, copy editing and so forth. But Greg and I have been working together for well over 15 years. Part of the thing that I always like to say about Greg's many... [10:50] personal superpowers, is if you ever read something that I've written that has humor in it, it's Greg. [10:57] That's awesome. And so it was like I was looking for an opportunity to get Greg some of the massive credit he deserves in generating the ideas and creating them and refining them in the work that we do together. And so since he's a former journalist who worked at Wired and did a bunch of stuff, it's like, okay, when we're writing directly about

[11:17] why it is this technology is so humanizing and amplification on humanists. This is the thing. [11:25] that we should do together and put both of our names on it. And that's the reason. Amazing. As well as being about super agency, this book has in many ways some superpowers of its own, which is that it's extremely personalized, which I thought was amazing. There's my picture on the back, there's references to the generalist in there. I thought it was such an interesting [11:55] It makes me wonder, what are the technologies that might be in your next book that aren't quite ready now? What might that look like? Well, given that the... [12:05] The thesis is that AI can make our human connections better, can amplify it. I'm always thinking and trying to explore and show, not just tell. [12:15] So obviously, as you've seen, the Read.ai, where I have my digital twin. I have to say, this is much better still. Yes, thank you. But it's very impressive. Yes. And by the way, Read.ai has done like 10 different media interviews. It's done, it's opened conferences. When I gave a speech in Perugia last year, we had Read.ai give the same speech in Italian, relevant, but also Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, and as part of that kind of human connection. [12:45] Well, what does AI mean? Not just obviously impromptu, helping write the book, super agency, research and tighten up and play foil for making sure your arguments are strong and solid, but also, what other things does AI make doable? And it's like, well, it can make...

[13:01] the personalized book for Mario, for the generalist. And it's like, okay, well, let's start doing it. We started doing it with Impromptu, by the way. So we kind of like beta tested the technology there. And then we said, okay, now we're going to really start doing it. Now, printing one at a time is... [13:19] Still takes some time, you know, world of atoms, not just bits. But like for sure, the next things we will do will continue to be as when we have the ideas about what kinds of things we can do, we will deploy those to kind of to try to show how it is we gain human agency, how we gain human connection, how we gain an ability to have AI have us be more homo techne. [13:43] which is our evolution of humanity through technology and through how we integrate it into our lives. And so [13:51] you know, I'm quite certain within six months, I'll have another idea. Marc Thiessen: Amazing. Yeah. I love this idea. Everyone who enjoys reading has had that moment when they're reading a book and they're like, "Wow, it feels like this author is talking right to me. Like it really captures my emotions or my experiences." And it's crazy to just [14:09] peer a tiny bit over the hill and say that will be literally true before long. One of the topics that I thought was really interesting in the book was you talk about how a lot of the doomerism over the years has sort of attached itself to Orwell's 1984, that we're going to be in this surveillance state. And actually, if you look at the history of technology and specifically things like personal computers, it is so much about agency. We have much more power than Orwell could have imagined.

[14:39] sort of [14:40] One of the converses of that that I find interesting is, you know, I'm sure the Neil Postman book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," and the idea being that, okay, we don't really live in 1984, but we kind of do live in a brave new world where we are so satiated, so amused by our magical devices that we've... [14:58] opiated ourselves. [15:00] How do you think about that? Does AI make that better, worse? All technologies... I mean, the Amusing Ourselves to Death is a book I recommend to everybody. And it's the thesis that maybe Huxley, not Orwell, was right. And I think we've... [15:14] almost demonstrated that while there may be autocracies that are Orwellian that are using technology in this way, and so Orwell's theory was not a bad theory, it just seems that Western democracies actually in fact, in their kind of policies of how they integrate technologies at least so far, have been able to get all the amplification and not the Orwellian dystopia. [15:36] But of course, there's the Huxleyan dystopia, which is we're not controlled by pain, we're controlled by pleasure, we're not controlled by the reduction of information, we're controlled by the flood of information such that it becomes all irrelevant. And that, I actually think, and Postman was writing well, he was writing about the television. He was writing well before the internet, let alone current AI and all the rest. And obviously, there have been elements of that. [16:06] leaders in society say, well, look, we do want to navigate that.

[16:10] in good ways. Now, classically in AI, so we deal with some of this in super agency, people say, well, is it going to take the thinking away from me? It's getting the agency thing. I don't have to think. By the way, the same thing was said during the printing press. We had the exact same discourse. And we even had more modern books saying, oh, unlike the printing press, which gives you information and you have to think about, this just thinks for you. And it's like, [16:40] So it's like, no, no, actually, in fact, it's still the same thing. And so I think there will be people who use it to be lazy, just as there's people who look up, in the technical term, dumbass shit on the internet and then believe it. It is to say that you say, well, we want to put in the gentle nudges to have less of the lazy stupidity and more of the amplification. [17:10] last week in Egypt, and I was looking at these Egyptian temples, which are just majestic and awe-inspiring. And I went to Chachi Bedi and I was like, how much would it cost to build one of these things today? And I started sharing stuff with the Egyptologist guide that I have, because it was like, oh, and here's the analysis that Chachi Bedi has given me about what it would take to build this today and so on. And the Egyptologist, could you send this to me? This would be useful

[17:40] It's like that's our thinking. We're learning. We're doing things as ways of doing it. And so I think that kind of human amplification is the kind of thing that I think [17:50] We will see a lot of that. And so what we need to do is kind of steer the technology... [17:55] to kind of, you know, it's never we're going to get rid of all the bad. Try to get rid of the really bad and then, you know, really limit it and then try to, you know, like for example, in the Huxleyan thing, all right, are we reduced to, you know, I think the film was Idiocracy, [18:11] Are we reduced to kind of sitting on the couch? WALL-E. Yes, yes, et cetera, et cetera. Let's not do that. Yes. Yeah, I think the optimistic view around AI in the Huxleyan framework to me would be, yes, Postman was talking about TVs. [18:26] Functionally, all of our computers now have become TVs. Like our phones are televisions, our laptops are televisions. AI, hopefully, because of how you're able to interface with it through voice, [18:36] allows you to really be in the world, but still access all of that information in a very different way. Obviously, there will be use cases where you want to see something and so on and so forth. But that strikes me as it could be a nice pivot away from being stuck in a SOMA lab or a SOMA state, as Huxley would say. In sort of... [18:56] preparing for this and following your career, of course, over the years, it sort of struck me how your particular journey feels like it was perfectly crafted for this moment in history. A review for listeners would be study philosophy at Oxford, specialization in really some of these linguistics philosophers like Wittgenstein and language games, that sort of stuff.

[19:20] Then help build PayPal, make commerce happen over the internet, paying people digitally. [19:28] Then LinkedIn, network theory, connecting all these people. And then OpenAI, MonusAI, Inflection, playing and building with this new technology. And now the world that we're in is AI that plays these incredible language games that really makes us ask the deepest philosophical questions possible, that networks with everyone and with each other. And that pretty soon, we'll [19:54] get paid like digital workers over the internet. Does it feel like that to you that if you look at the dots backwards, it all connects in this very nice way? Well, we as human beings are storytellers. So I can definitely tell a, it was manifest destiny from this set of things. There's a set of strategic principles that I kind of step in trying to make my contributions to kind of human progress. And obviously a set of them around technology, a set [20:24] Right? So, my undergraduate was Symbolic Systems, which is cognitive science and artificial intelligence. I said, "Well, what most interests me is how we think, how we speak, how we understand each other." Maybe philosophers have a good sense of this. So going into philosophy and definitely with Wittgenstein and the linguistic turn, there [20:41] a tremendous amount of learning on that. Like for example, one of the things that was kind of a serendipity was I hadn't really thought about kind of entrepreneurship and technology creation

[20:52] Except that I had gone to Stanford. Yes. And I got exposed to that. And then when I was here at, you know, kind of at Oxford and I was like, okay, do I want to write books? I was like, no, no, actually creating this software technology, you know, to kind of to geek and borrow from the, from Star Wars. It's like, it's the mitochondrians. It's the thing that binds us all together and connects us and all the rest. Because it's the way that we, like we use software as the modern way of shaping our minds, our worldviews, how we communicate, how we present ourselves to people. [21:22] I was like, okay, I want to go do that. And it was only many years later that I got back to writing books. Yes. After going through that full journey, I'm curious because of your work with Wittgenstein, and you've talked, I think, in the past about Gareth Evans and some of these other linguistic philosophers. There is a reference. Yeah. Did that help you think about large language models when they appeared? Did it influence how you thought about the technology in general? [21:52] chatbots, having a podcast, even before Notebook LLM came out. And so it definitely helped me [22:02] understand language and languages' deep interconnections with thinking. [22:07] And some people think all of thinking is language, that's incorrect. But some of our most important thinking is definitely language and linguistic. And so the questions of anything from evaluating the Turing test. [22:21] to thinking about what the Turing test is, to thinking about like, well, if you have an agent that's producing language and thinking in ways that are so compelling that essentially passes the Turing test in various ways, what does that mean for our own thinking? What does that mean for how we evolve our thinking? And so it leads to the following kinds of interesting questions. So a classic kind of thinking that gets into philosophy science is as we develop tools,

[22:51] things, how does that change our epistemology of the world? [22:55] Well, okay, as we develop AI, how does that change our epistemology of the world? Like if our AI is saying something... [23:02] that we don't really fully understand, what does that mean? Because of course, could mean the AI is wrong. Yes. Right? That's one thing that's kind of accounting. But it also could mean, it's like, well, is the AI doing an inference that's currently beyond our ability to explain? And then you say, well, then we ask the AI for explanation. But of course, current large-scale language models, what they are is, since we're speaking philosophy, Harry Frankfurter is, they're great bullshitters. [23:30] Right. And so they're extremely creative. [23:32] And by the way, that's a feature much more than even it has bug elements, but it has a feature. So it says, "Oh, here's the explanation." You're like, "Yeah, but is that the actual explanation or are you just telling me something that sounds really compelling?" Or have you gotten to eventually to a point where, as you say, there's sort of this, you [23:50] it becomes an article of faith where you're like, hey, look, it's really intelligent. It can't really tell me, it can't explain it to my puny biological mind. Yes, exactly. So there opens up these new epistemological questions, which are thorny. They're actually hard to understand. And I'm sure that as we get to kind of studying them, we'll think about like, okay, what are the cases where we go, well, I don't understand what this

[24:20] taken on faith or taken on some kind of reasoned belief, [24:22] By the way, we have these different forms of, like this gets the philosophy thing, we say, well, classically we have different forms of reasoning. It's induction off data, it's deduction off principles, it's abduction by best theory. Well, maybe there's going to be a new, like, okay, what's the theory of reasoning? [24:39] That goes to a qualified belief in an AI system telling you something. [24:47] Maybe we're going to have a new AI-duction or something as a way of thinking about that. That will be another probably probabilistic theory. I mean, induction's a probabilistic theory. Abduction is a probabilistic theory. Deduction's usually not, although there's Bayesian deduction and so on. Maybe that will be a new form of thinking and what that means for epistemology, what it means for reasoning, what it means for deducing ontology, metaphysics, what is actually really there. [25:14] may have new landscape in it. [25:17] Yeah, it opens up, as you say, so many interesting philosophical questions. It actually raises something I wanted to talk to you about, which is you've defined yourself before as a mystical atheist, which I really like that phrasing. It sort of says, hey, look, I'm an atheist, but also like I kind of have a soul and I'm open to the unknown and all these other things. Has AI made... [25:36] the mystical part of that dyad higher or the atheist part more pronounced? [25:41] It certainly hasn't made the atheist part more pronounced. I mean, basically the atheist is, you've got a whole set of world religions that come to you and say, X has received truth.

[25:53] It's like, "Person X, they have the red phone line to God," or, "This book, this was the word of God," or, da, da, da, da, da. [26:01] And basically all of those things strike me as not believable. Yes. I would agree. Right? And that's where the atheist comes in. Because it's like, "No, none of those." Now, if someone comes to you and says, [26:13] You know, I feel that there's a spiritual presence that somehow was involved, maybe in creation and maybe in consciousness. Great. [26:22] By the way, because part of the thing that too often around people go, "I'm an atheist," is they go, "Well, we've got a lot of unanswered questions." Why is it the world works in this quantum thing with observer effects? That's strange. [26:37] What is this thing consciousness that we know that with modern like brain science and so forth, we can stimulate in different ways so we know that we're materially rooted, but what is it? [26:46] We don't really know. And so if you're not treating the world as mysterious, and by the way, like for example, you said, "Wow, there's absolutely no evidence for a spiritual force." Well, there's no evidence for lots of things that we later discover interesting things. [27:01] Yeah, you know, someone says, I have a perception, I have an intuition. That's interesting. And by the way, billions of people, human beings, one way or the other kind of share that intuition. [27:12] So be open to the mystery of the world. And by the way, it's one of the key things is the important thing is saying being open to mystery doesn't then mean say, okay, I've got this device that can measure your soul. Here, put your finger on this. No, thanks. I'm not going to go down that route. No, thank you. Yes, right. But it's mystery of the world has much more that's unexplained.

[27:35] than it is explained. Those machines that measure your soul almost always seem to have a very, very high sensitivity of like, "Oh no, things are terrible for you." We're sort of speaking about devices and things like that. The book talks a lot, of course, about agency and how AI is going elevate us. One of the ways that folks have talked about how that maybe happens over time is through things like brain computer interfaces and that leads to this deeper symbiosis. I'm curious, does that feel [28:04] reasonable next step to you in terms of how this plays out? Is that one closer step towards human obsolescence because we're sort of giving over our brain to something else? There's obviously a bunch of different thorny questions here, and it's easy to tell various science fiction stories, both of the utopian and dystopian. [28:23] sides. And it's one of the mistakes in reasoning we always have to be careful about because the fact that you can tell a dystopian story doesn't mean that there is any distinct probability of that. And the fact that you can tell a utopian story doesn't mean there's any distinct probability of that. So you have to kind of think much more carefully. Now, [28:40] We already, as part of this kind of thesis that I've been advancing that we're more homo technae than homo sapiens, is because we're already forms of cyborg. You know, the phones that we carry around for us, we're a form of cyborg with that. You know, glasses, I mean, literally technology, the thing that we're recording now.

[29:10] pacemakers and your hearts and all the rest of the boat. And partially because we locate our identity so much in our social personhood interaction, which is our brain. We go, well, what about brain? But by the way, we even do stuff in brains. I mean, we have ultrasound stimulation of brains for various things. We have definitely pharmaceuticals for treating depression and other kinds of things. So there's forms in which we're already very much [29:40] symbiotic beings. And I think that what we're trying to do is preserve what is essentially human. And what I mean by this in this case is, well... [29:51] we don't just value ourselves as cognitive beings. Some people probably say all we do is value cognitive beings, but I think as a species, we also value our human aspirations, compassion, wisdom, a set of things that go into that. And we want to keep that identity, cultural true north, even as we evolve as homo techni. So usually when people tell the cyborg dystopic stories, [30:21] Now this machine, you know, Ant Hill... [30:24] I don't care about these human values. And he's like, okay, we want to steer away from that. But [30:30] You know, if you begin to say... [30:32] For example, say we all have a kind of a cybernetic implant that allows us to have cloud storage for everything. And now, for example, some people have photographic memories. What if we all essentially have an incomplete experience store that we can now...

[30:52] you know, index back to? What if we, you know, kind of had a, you know, like a set of those things? You say, well, that doesn't sound so bad. That sounds like it could be human. That sounds like it could be good. I mean, I'm sure there's some people who go, oh, no, no, it's dystopic. But, you know, the same people are like, you know, horses, not cars. Right. And so, like, I think we are on that path of how we are evolving ourselves. And by the way, even though, [31:22] kind of the elephant in the rooms that most people are tracking is we're also making huge progress on genetics. [31:29] And of course, the way it will start is like, "Oh, well, we can choose the IVF fertilized embryo that doesn't have the disease or doesn't have the bad gene." And then you can modify it a little bit. But as you get there, you go, [31:44] "Well, wait a minute, if we understand how to modify our genetics to kind of naturally, like just say, naturally have everyone live 10 healthier years." [31:54] Why not? Why wouldn't you do that? Yeah. And then you begin to go down, and then he's like, well, but... [31:59] then what if we were modifying our genetics to be stronger? What if we were modifying our genetics? That's also where homo techni will kind of flow back into this. And so I think we're kind of going la la la la la la la, not paying attention, whereas it's like, well, actually, in fact, [32:16] realize that what we do as human beings is we evolve through technology and we should start thinking about like, what's the small steps? What would we learn? How do we preserve what is essentially human? How do we go as opposed to saying, no future? You go, no, no, future carefully.

[32:33] Right? Future iteratively through step, watch, step, watch. Oh, correct that step. [32:42] And that's precisely, I think, the path we need to be on. So I think [32:47] you know, part of the thing is people go, "Oh my God, cyborgs." And you're like, "By the way, we're already on that path." Yeah, we're already part way there. Yeah. Everyone probably listening to this, [32:56] probably has a smartphone. Yes. You're already on that path. You're listening to headphones. You're already on the path. This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. What do companies like OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, Webflow, Plaid, and Vercel all have in common? They use WorkOS to power enterprise features like single sign-on, direct resync, [33:17] and multi-factor authentication. WorkOS is set apart by its modern APIs and SDKs for seamless enterprise integrations. [33:25] Plus, it's free to get started. [33:27] Thank you. [33:28] Whether you're a scrappy startup or rapidly scaling, WorkOS has the solutions you need [33:33] to secure enterprise deals. [33:35] Future-proof your authentication stack with the identity layer best suited to meet the evolving demands of enterprise environments. [33:42] Find out how at WorkOS.com. [33:45] and use the code Mario for an exclusive listener offer. Again, visit WorkOS.com with code Mario. [33:52] and cross the enterprise chasm today. [33:55] Speaking of the genetic IVF stuff, it reminded me of, I wonder if you read it, Oren Hoffman, the Brotherhood of Hoffman. Yes. Not related, but I like Oren. Yes. Had an interesting post about sort of like luxury...

[34:10] embryos and the idea that in the future we might have a world in which everyone gets to raise Michael Jordan or Einstein or whoever it is, and it's sort of wild to... [34:20] to think that that technology might be possible at some point. [34:24] Definitely possible. I mean, my primary worry in, well, there's a number of worries, but one of the worries in the genetic thing is we actually need to maintain a certain amount of diversity. And I think that's actually, that's important to do. And so as we begin to do steps on, we know how to eliminate Huntington's. Great. There's lupus. Great. Like, you know, but- [34:44] But like, it's OK, let's not like even if we go like, for example, this is the gene that gives us all. [34:49] 10 years longer, healthy, [34:52] It's like, okay, but let's make sure that we're never mono-cultural because that's the kind of thing where a virus or other kinds of things can be. That's the reason why it's like, ah, you got to think carefully about that stuff. [35:10] For example, the place that when people say, "Wow, are you opposed to regulation?" Because I generally say, "We need to develop our technologies in the future. We need to do it through iterative development. We cannot overly predict." But on the things that can have scale millions, "Hey." Take a beat. "Let's pay attention." Yeah. On the symbiosis piece, I don't even mean this necessarily doomerishly because I'm a techno-optimist, [35:40] this.

[35:40] Isn't it inevitable at some point that [35:43] this just surpasses us and we are not necessary for the symbiosis in some way. AI is just on this, it's a different species that is operating on a very different time scale. And so maybe we can have BCI or we can make genetic tests, but at some point, doesn't it just say like, what are you bringing to the equation? Well, there's all kinds of questions about [36:08] you know, in some sense, [36:11] there's definitely a sense of [36:13] Look, we will get to, in some number of centuries, maybe decades, maybe millennia, the creation of entities, AI, [36:23] by the way, also us. [36:25] as [36:26] as cognitively superpowered, [36:28] from where we are, where we kind of go, hey, you know, those new entities are to us like we are to squirrels. Now you go, well, but that can be alarming because like, you know, we're very comfortable with where we are right here and right now. And you're like, well, one is, and I, you know, want to see more utopian science fiction because like Ian Banks's culture series, like, well, if we are creating super capable creatures, AI or us, and I'll get to that in a second, [36:58] like, well, that doesn't necessarily mean that, like... [37:02] Why don't we, if that's the inevitable path, because by the way, to some degree, given how human beings operate, we don't all decide to not build an AI. That doesn't happen. Also, you don't get to decide, hey, this is where evolution stops and it's this exact shape. And yeah. Yeah. So you go, okay. So the principal thing is shaping it. And human beings divide into groups and have different theories of the world and compete with each other.

[37:32] dividing into groups, having different theories of the world, different competition, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And so you go, okay, so even if that's the case, well, why don't we put all of our energy into how do you have it such that it is a symbiotic form? And then you've got questions around like, well, but as it's created, maybe there's like, [37:53] cyborg, kind of symbiotic forms that are useful. Maybe it's that like Ian Banks' culture, these ships and mines are actually, in fact, intrinsically, kind of call it quasi-Buddhist, like fascinated with forms of conscious biological life and trying to participate and learn and help. [38:13] kind of in the way that we have as human beings is sometimes that we interact with other life forms. [38:22] we can learn to be better, not just pets, not just studying the gorilla preserves, but you know, blah, something on those lines. Or also, by the way, and this is one of the things that all the science fiction usually doesn't cover, is like, well, like, how are we evolving? [38:36] Right? So, like one of the science fiction things I've thought about writing is like, what's the... Like if you said, "Hey, you have an evolution of silicon intelligence. What's the evolution of biological intelligence? How do those kind of... What's the dance in that look like?" Because that's certainly also going to become possible in various ways. And it's part of the reason why when you think, "Hey, we have multiple different societies that are competing with each other," one or more of the society say, "Oh, we know how

[39:04] more intelligent human beings, [39:06] We're going to do that. Can you tell me a little bit about that biological intelligence dance? Like if you were to try and do that sci-fi book, what does that look like? Well, so here's an interesting fact. [39:16] today. [39:17] on a per watt basis, [39:19] we are massively more intelligent than silicon. This is 20 watts. On a per watt basis, we are massively smarter. The reason why AI already today has superhuman capabilities, there's things that GBD-4 can do that no individual human being can do. Maybe a group of human beings could- Catch up in a longer time. Well, slower, but do some of the things that GBD-4 [39:49] But by the way, we look at GBD-4 and we go, well, that's super power, that's good for us. We're not alarmed by that super power. And that's kind of the progression of these things. So if you say, well, okay, so today in our biological intelligence processing, we are massively more efficient per cognitive capability per watt. So if we can even do mild extensions of it. [40:09] Maybe in different distinct ways we can keep up. [40:13] Right? Because this is currently, and yes, the training that's the most expensive, but even the inference. [40:20] uses a lot in order to get there. So that's like one thought. And then, you know, the other, [40:27] you know, kind of thoughts around this are, like you get to, you know, some of the work that Roger Penrose and other people are doing and saying, hey, the way we think is not purely computational because there's kind of quantum mechanics and this thing called tubulars and other things.

[40:43] And maybe there's some interesting attributes in that too. And so I'm not saying this is kind of like speculative, just idle hopefulness. I think there's lots of different paths to being hopeful on this. And by the way, here is a simple economist thing that leads me to say why I think symbiosis with silicon AIs is so doable. Like roughly when you see the [41:05] competition of species is like, what are they competing for? So most of mammals and so forth, they're competing for essentially calories, right? Silicon intelligence don't care about calories. [41:16] They're like, "You can have all the calories. You can have all the oxygen. It's all yours." We care about sunlight, [41:22] "You know, we care about metals." And like, well, actually, in fact, there's a very natural, like, hey, there's a lot of metals and sunlight in the whole universe, right? How about we help you with that, and you help us with the things we care about, which is like oxygen and calories and so forth. Now, when you get to, say for example, [41:40] the next phase of HOMO, next phase, which might be twice as smart as nobody else, well, they care about the oxygen and calories stuff too. So then there's more of a challenge there. So I'm actually more... [41:54] like default optimistic about the symbiosis when it comes to silicon things because it's like, well, it's pretty easy to figure out how to divide up the pie in which we're very happy and you're very happy and like collaborating together. And that's part of the reason why I'm also optimistic we can steer to good ways. [42:13] Right? Because it's like, well, what they care about is how do we build much bigger compute infrastructure? Well, there's a lot of asteroids. Yeah, you have to get into, you start doing the asteroid mining. Yes, yeah. But like, hey, let's do that together. We would like you to do that. Yeah, 100%. Don't take my pasta and I won't take your silicon. On the subject of sci-fi, you've mentioned like, we need more optimistic sci-fi, more utopian sci-fi. Why do you think

[42:43] less rich dramatic palette for narrative? Yeah. I mean, look, the simple thing is for good stories, we're naturally storytellers, kind of homo narratus. [42:54] And as part of stories, stories have heroes and villains. Like the most often... [43:00] story has that factor. Sometimes the villain's a circumstance or other things. Right, man in a hole. But the most natural one that we evolve through is heroes and villains. And so the most natural thing is to say, okay, [43:13] humans are the people, are the heroes, and machines are the villains. [43:19] And that gives you your dramatic tension and all the rest. But the problem is that it's like, well, how we homotechnically have evolved is through technology. It's like we have all these machines that... [43:34] make our lives infinitely better. Like, "Oh, robots." And you're like, "Yeah." By the way, some of the best advances in surgery [43:44] are with robots. [43:46] Right. And if you had to choose today between an appropriately trained AI reading your X-ray, and a human, you'd choose the AI. Now, you'd want both. But all of this stuff is, it's a kind of a failure of imagination. So I've kind of harangued my various Hollywood and other friends to say, look, you have to be trying to imagine, I get the stories in conflict, and you need a story with conflict, but you need to be imagining how we're navigating with

[44:16] also heroic. It's kind of, it's part of the things that I think we're [44:21] great about a lot of, you know, kind of earlier science fiction. Various of my friends have been trying to work on this, like Neil Stevenson's been trying to work on this. It's like, okay, we need this for society. Because the thing that's interesting is that, [44:34] the dance between how science and science fiction work is not that either of them is the only lead. [44:41] So sometimes science fiction imagines things that then science goes, "Ooh, that's interesting. I'm going to go look at that." And sometimes science discoveries that then... You extrapolate it. Yes. And you need to have our narration stories to be imagining, like the subtitle of the book, what could possibly go right? [45:00] Right? And it doesn't mean it has... Yes, of course you want a compelling story. Of course you want drama and tension and conflict because that's part of what engages. But it doesn't have to be the future of machines is destructive. Yes, you could create a great drama in heaven. And then that would be the simplest utopia. One of the better books I would say that... I wouldn't say it's a utopia by any means, but it's certainly not a dystopia and it really explores it well. [45:30] Yes, it's awesome. I thought that was a beautiful depiction of where the technology is just as human as us, and the conflict is really, it certainly touches the technology, but it's not just about that. One of the- 100%. The topics I get into with maybe a very pragmatic tech person who sort of doesn't understand the value of fiction is one metaphor is like, hey, this is actually the richest possible training data you can find on what it is like to live in a mind and like what the sort of

[46:00] essence of mind is. Do you think that's roughly a decent metaphor? I think it's a good metaphor. I think one of the things when we think about these things is, and this is part of the, back to mysticism or mystical, is always apply multiple metaphors. [46:15] It's a good tactical, but it's a good one. You know, when we look at the future of... [46:21] narrative and literature, what do you think the Dostoyevsky's or Tolstoy's of today would be doing? In some ways, I feel like they can't be thinking, "Hey, I'll push out another [46:34] great work of literary fiction, would they be making games? Something that I know you're passionate about. Disco Elysium is like, I think the best novel I ever played. It's such a beautiful story. But yeah, what do you think the frontiers are there for that kind of creative expression? Well, definitely the simulated world. Definitely there's like a lot of people are thinking about how AIs can play different characters. That's a very broad, everyone's kind of, not everyone, [47:04] Part of this kind of question comes down to, you kind of go back to first principles. When you're writing literature, what are the things you're trying to do? And part of, I think, what literature is trying to do is to help us. [47:15] kind of think about and learn about ourselves, about other people, about our engagement with people, about our engagement with the world, what kind of paths we walk through, how we do those experiences, everything from kind of the tactile experiential characteristic all the way to

[47:34] thinking about like, well, what is the meaning of life, the purpose of life? How do I reflect that in my own life? How do I reflect that in our lives? And so I think that's what literature does. And obviously, it's in different things. You have Ulysses doing stream of consciousness. And what does that kind of do? You have Proust doing the minute examination. [47:54] of the experience of being in a room and detailed every little ... It's almost like a Buddhist meditation of you're paying extreme attention to all the experience. Those are part of what [48:08] created. And then obviously when you do it in a particularly kind of artistic or [48:13] engaging way, when you do it in a new way, kind of original. I pay minute attention, but some, to what kind of art's being created with AI. Rafiq Anadol's work and other kinds of ways of doing this. Because it's like, okay, how does this go to that first principle around art, which is how do we experience ourselves, understand ourselves, understand other people, understand our relationship with them, understand all of our relationships with the world and individually, [48:43] in groups and what does that cause us to do? And I think that's where... [48:49] the principles of literature will be, whether it will be virtual worlds or whether it will be something different than virtual worlds, but experienced in, you know, Oculus glasses or like what those things will be, I think is.

[49:05] That's the role of the artist. Yeah, to figure out. Yeah, to find those new mediums and... [49:12] We've talked a little bit about regulation and the role that policymakers have in making sure we don't screw up the bounty that AI might create. Something I've been thinking a lot about is like... [49:27] One of the stories I think you could tell about our era is that [49:30] The pace of technological innovation and the speed at which policy change occurs are so crazily mismatched that it's impossible for one to catch up. Does that make sense to you? And if so, how do we make sure that there is actually good policy around this or bring the public sector in, in a way that is productive rather than destructive? One of, I think, the generally mistaken hopes is saying, "Hey, we can get the policy [49:59] write for an advance. [50:01] And generally speaking, I think that's very difficult to do. I think it's part of the reason why most minimum focused regulations to stop massively negative things. [50:14] Right, is I think the important thing. And then the rest of that's kind of iteration. That's also the case. And I understand people's concerns about the speed and concerns about a cognitive capability and concerns about running away. But that's essentially when we look at our ability to do this over thousands of years, it's always in that kind of vector. Now that being said, there is role, like part of the reason why, as you know, we use the cars is to go, okay,

[50:37] If we had said no cars until we've reviewed that they're perfectly safe, then never any cars. And we said, well, but we could list the thousand things. And you're like, well, let's make sure they never explode. Let's make sure they have bumpers that are six feet wide. Let's make sure that ... And you're like, yeah, and it'll never work. [50:57] So you put it on the road. And by the way, the normal commercial thing then figures out how to have better breaks and airbags and all the rest. But by the way, governments do have to intervene because, for example, the government's [51:11] The government's had to intervene on seat belts because the manufacturer said, "Well, we have zero consumer demand for seat belts." Yes. No one wants this. People don't want them, right? So we don't want to build them. And the government's like, "No, actually, in fact, we're all better off if not only we have seat belts, but we have cars that beep at you until you put them on because, by the way, and why are we obliging to say, "This is a restriction of individual freedom." It's like, "Well, actually, in fact, we pay for a whole hospital system," right? [51:39] And actually, you're having your seatbelt on makes this not only better for you, in fact, and better for everybody else, but also, by the way, this is a good way for us being good in our economics. [51:51] because the hospital system is is expensive and if you went [51:55] crashing through the front window and so forth. We're going to try to save you and so on. So, it kind of gives you, it's a, you iteratively deploy and then you add the specific regulations. And then what I say to people is like, "Well, you're saying we should do nothing now?" It's like, "No, no. The minimum focus big." And then the other one, if you want to be helpful,

[52:17] as opposed to just standing on a soapbox and yelling criticism, [52:20] Like, figure out what are the metrics that you want to be measuring. [52:24] to saying, hey, things are going wrong. [52:27] Like here is a measurable metric. Because by the way, if you're right about it, like you say, hey, you know, take... [52:34] kind of social media stuff saying, "Hey, this is creating a spread of misinformation and anger." Okay, what are the metrics for that? Because then, by the way, government can go and say, "Well, look, we want you to be measuring these metrics. We want you to be having your auditors measure that the metrics are accurate." You don't necessarily have to disclose them publicly, but you have to have them when we come and ask about them. Do you have ideas of what you think the right metrics might be? [53:02] Well, for the social networking stuff, I was giving some of those examples, which are, like for example, you could say, "Well, here's a list of things that we have as well understood scientific truth." Yes. You could say, "Well, it can't be too expansive. Fine. Let's start with that. Let's say with that metric." And then we kind of iterate that over time. That would be an instance of truth. Are policymakers good enough at iterative policy? [53:28] Well, they need to get better at iterative policy because this gets back to your speed part of your question. Yes, exactly. But what that needs to be is like part of it is, no, their capability set should look more like a CO. A CO is not a good VP of engineering. A CO is a CO. They should be, how are we engaging industry, academia, and other experts to go, okay, here is a thing that seems like it's the right thing, like what the metric might be, right?

[53:58] groups of them to work together and propose those metrics and say, great, you guys all kind of go out and figure out some things to come back and then propose those metrics to us. [54:13] And like I was giving a scientific one on a kind of an initial misinformation. You could also do the kind of the agitation of am I getting angrier and having more fury as a month by month thing as opposed to... And by the way, that shouldn't be zero, because there's always some baseline that's happening. [54:38] And because it's our share it, share it, share it, it's like, oh, those evil people, they blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, that may not be good for the health and cohesion of society. So it's like to say, again, it's not trying to get it to zero. It's just trying to get it to a, look, if it's growing because of how our intention algorithms work, [54:57] then we've got a problem. And so it's like, okay, how do we adjust that in kind of small ways? And I think that kind of thing, I think is the kind of thing, and I know people who I would put on a panel to- Think about this. To think about that and so on. And if government were being smart, now the thing that government has to decide is we want to be [55:17] proactive and smart about this. We want to be engaging with industry, NGOs, academics. We want to be saying, "Hey, you guys pull this stuff together." For example, if government came to me and said, "Hey, could you pull together a proposal for one of them?" I would do it. That's part of our responsibilities as citizens. I think that's the kind of thing that we should be

[55:40] doing more. We also, by the way, have both on this side of the pond and the US side of the pond and other places, France, et cetera, there's organizations that will do that. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences will say, hey, if you come to us and say, we'd like a [55:57] like an independent body to have thought this through and generated some thinking for us. And they go, "Great. You're going to pay attention to this and may actually use it. We'd love to do that work." So that's the kind of way to engage. Now, of course, it doesn't give you the, "I'm standing in front of the television camera going, 'I am disciplining those evil people on the left, on the right, whatever." Okay, fine. Yeah. If someone came to you and said, "Hey, [56:27] I don't know, a few things that you would say [56:30] These are the three things that I would want to start with, not even the right metrics, but just like the right things to be thinking about. [56:37] So for AI, [56:39] And there's different stuff for social media. People frequently complain about the same at all. And by the way, on the social media side, I'd also pay attention equally to what happens with cable news, talk radio, all of the same patterns happen here. 100%. I think some stuff from the Biden executive order are very good. It's like, well, do you have a safety team? Do you have a safety plan? Are you red teaming? What are the set of risk considerations that you've documented that you're [57:09] that when I come to you and say, "Hey, have you included X?" or, "What is it? Can I see it?" There's something there, which I think all the responsible labs, which include Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Anthropics, et cetera, are all doing. So I think that kind of thing is, I think, an important thing to have. And I think kind of having a growing...

[57:30] basis and collaboration. What I'd probably say is as a government, I'd say, "Hey, I'd [57:37] to have a consortium of universities leading and working with industry on this and iterating that work. Yeah. Again, so that I can... [57:45] can check in on it. And if I have a particular issue, like something bad happens, I go, "Were you guys paying attention to this?" And they go, "No." And they go, "Okay, could you start?" Or, "Yes." "Okay, great." [57:56] Why did this happen? Was it just like, for example, the fact that a plane crash happened? Planes are massively safe, but we all go haywire when there's a plane crash because it's so visible. [58:06] If you say you could travel all your miles every day the rest of your life by plane or by car, [58:14] Anybody with two brain cells to rub together goes plain. Yes. Right? Because it's massively safer. But it's like, well, were you paying attention? Is there something you learned and what do you do? So that would be one. Another one would be kind of the questions around what are the things by which we make sure that we're getting all the healthy individual and society empowerment and we're not empowering rogue states, terrorists, criminals? What does that plan look like? [58:42] How's editing? [58:44] towards what are the things we need to be doing. And then this transition issue. So part of I describe it as... [58:51] the cognitive industrial revolution. And I use that because it's both the amazement of we have nothing of the world that we have today without the industrial revolution. On the other hand, the transition was painful and difficult. And we will have not fun transition.

[59:06] So it's like, well, okay, so AI is going to be changing the nature of work and the set of tasks, kind of set of things. Are we building enough of the AIs to help people with the transitions? [59:18] Right? And are we getting the full benefits, medical assistant, tutor, legal assistant, and is that being distributed broadly enough throughout society? And so those would be the kinds of things that I would be going here, here, here, in terms of what kinds of things to actually be working on. Yeah, let's make a start. You're someone who cares a great deal about friendship. Obviously, we all love to have friends, but you take that as that art of it almost in a serious way. [59:48] AI's impact on human friendships? Because I could sort of on the one hand say, "Wow, this is going to lead to abundant friendships. We can talk to a friend in any atomized moment. It just happens to be a friend that's on our phone or in our ears or anywhere else." But on the other hand, does that mean that we sort of end up spending less time with the old biological friends we have? Great question. I'll start with what we were doing with inflection and pi. [1:00:13] Because I think part of our goal with Inflection and Pi was to kind of show a set of things that were very important, that were an important part of the kind of the agentic universe, chatbot universe. So one of the ones that we were very public about, and we're public of both of them, but we were very, and I think we've got a good catalyst in the overall system. I think Anthropic has been evolving this way and others, which is,

[1:00:38] EQ is as important as IQ. So to have an agent that is kind, empathetic, et cetera, because by the way, how do we learn that? How do we normalize that in our human-human interactions is because of that sort of thing. And so build that into your interaction. And Pi, I think, is still one of the most leading examples of that, although I think we've got some of the catalytic participation in the ecosystem that I think is very good. But then you go, well, but is that the danger that [1:01:08] personal intelligence, pun intended, and not to their other human friends and so forth. And it's like, well, what we did with Pi is we said, if you go to Pi and say, you're my best friend. It says, no, no, no, no. I'm your AI companion. You want to talk about friends? Have you seen any of your friends recently? It's a good thing to do. And not like, I'm going to stop talking to you until, but it's like, hey, I'm trying to help you with your life, [1:01:34] in various ways, which includes a healthy human life is having friends. Whether you're an introvert, whether you're an extrovert, everyone, your life is made a lot better with friends. And so kind of nudging and facilitating that direction, not going, "Yes, I'm your only friend. Talk to me only. Everyone else is not on your side as much as I am," et cetera, et cetera. And so that should be a kind of a lens. [1:02:00] for how to build these things. Now, one of the things that's really interesting about Pi, what we've learned from it is, we've learned all kinds of things. Like for example, sometimes when people in a really depressed circumstance, they come to it,

[1:02:12] And it really helps them because they're like, oh, I don't feel like I feel too ashamed to talk to the people. Well, fine, you can talk to Pi and that helps you get back to it. Married couples have told us that what they will do is that when they're having a particular contentious conversation, they'll put Pi down and put an audio. No way. And then it will be helping. Well, I think when you said this, you meant this. Wow. Right. That is very good. And that, again, helps that human interaction. [1:02:42] from, that's what we try to do in Pi, but there's also amazing positive features and how it helps you navigate your life. [1:02:51] helps you in your friendships, helps you in some of your most important interactions. Like another thing that people can use Pi and other agents for is like, oh, I'm going to have this difficult conversation with my friend. I really think they should stop smoking or they're drinking too much or they were really rude to this other person. They shouldn't have been. How should I approach that conversation? Or they're in deep grief because they just lost their treasured pet. How do I approach that conversation? And actually, [1:03:21] All of these agents are really helpful. We think Pi is in particular helpful because it kind of turned on the EQ side of it. But all of that leads to... [1:03:29] much better amplification in friendship. [1:03:31] And I think that's where we want to be steering broadly to. That doesn't mean that you can't have your agent that's a mock-up of your favorite anime character that you're having interactions with. That's fine in a panoply of interactions. And that's the kind of thing that I think we want to be creating. Do you have a sense of what the right body is for these companions? Is the phone the right place? Is the pin, the necklace? Obviously, the phone's going to be a central

[1:04:01] It's network connected, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously we'll also have glasses, at least in official capacities, because actually in fact when someone says, "Oh, I have a glass that's a camera out," it might feel weird if we're here, but if anything from a doctor or anyone else comes up to you, it's like, "Oh, that's a good thing." And by the way, I like it for police officers having it, because by the way, it's better for the whole society. Better for the police officer, it's better for the person. Yeah. [1:04:31] Yes, that's a good thing. It means that we have a ... It's good when there's additional cameras and data sources and things looking at these kinds of things. How it gets to interpersonal would be an interesting question. You could say, "Oh, that's a little strange." I actually think that within some number not great end years, anytime we're having an interesting conversation, we'll put the AI agent down on the phone and go participate. You think we [1:05:00] Like, don't listen? No, because I think they'll get trained for like, oh, you're in a social circumstance, so don't interject other than it might kind of like flash a little bit because you go, oh, you remember you were just saying this thing about ancient Egyptians in your conversation with Mario? Oh, quite right. Oh, yeah, yeah. You go, oh, right, okay. Right. Stop misinformation at the source. Yeah. But it's like, and also it'll remember things.

[1:05:30] agent I used. [1:05:32] for Egypt, and I forgot about it, it was like, "Oh, it'll remember." I think that will become suddenly, "Oh yeah, that's great. It's natural. It's awesome that it's there." Right? I think is the kind of thing that will happen in these things, and that will be facilitating really positive interaction. Amazing. As we reach sort of the final stages or final phase here- Of our first conversation. Of our first. Thank you. I love to hear that. One of the goals of this podcast is to [1:06:02] help sort of distribute the future more broadly with the idea that conversations with people like you help people see it a little bit earlier. I'm curious, you know, what, what, what, what, [1:06:11] What are the ways that [1:06:13] you use AI today that maybe might be surprising to some folks? I'll start with the... [1:06:19] general framework, and then get to some of the specifics. The general framework is these AIs are very good at taking roles. When you think about, oh, I'd like to learn or understand this stuff, what's the nature of the expert that I'd like to be talking to [1:06:38] And you can kind of shape it in that way. So like when I was just last week going down the Nile and looking at these Egyptian temples, I was like, okay, from a modern expert constructor, what would the plan be to build the Temple of Karnak? What would the construction plan be? How long would it take? What kinds of expertise would you need? What kinds of equipment would you need? How much would the whole thing cost, et cetera, et cetera? Yeah. I gave you a crazy quote. You're like, yeah, I'm kidding. Yeah. Five to 10 billion. Yeah. Right. US dollars. And so, but that's just like, it's any time that you're

[1:07:08] going through anything in life. Like you'd say, hey, I'm trying to understand this particular piece of art. [1:07:13] like you can actually take a picture of it and go, "Okay, what would a Renaissance art historian say about this?" And if they were also an expert in modern creation of AI, what would they say about this? And if they were also an expert in Italian history, what would they say about this? It's that world of experts is already there. Now, another thing that very few people use it for, [1:07:43] "Huh, I've not used this microwave before. I want to heat up this thing." You can take a picture of it and say, "Okay, how do I make popcorn with this?" And it'll go, "Oh, this is the sequence of frequently." Because it can parse that. That makes sense. [1:08:13] of how you can navigate this. And so all of these, so one is the role taking, and the other one is, [1:08:19] Start just like you go, huh? [1:08:23] Okay. [1:08:24] Try it. [1:08:25] Right. Now, by the way, of course, sometimes it's wrong, sometimes it hallucinates. And so anything that's critically important, [1:08:32] Right. Now, I think unlike, for example, some current world leaders who won't say, oh, you can solve COVID by drinking bleach. Yes. Thankfully, it's well past that level of hallucination. Yes. But if it is something that's

[1:08:48] Important? Well, then cross-check. [1:08:50] - Right, and by the way, one of the things that's actually pretty handy is that sometimes when I look at something and it gives me an output, I go, huh, okay, cross-check this for accuracy. - Yeah, I love doing that. - Just do that. - Verify. - Yeah, just verify this. And by the way, it doesn't necessarily mean it'll get you the right answer, [1:09:05] But if it just gave you a hallucinated answer, it has a very good chance [1:09:09] of telling you, "Oh, well, that's actually not right." Yeah. I don't have any data for this. So yeah. I just gave you this answer, but I'm now telling you it's not right. Like when I went and researched it, it's not right. And that's again, really useful. Yeah, absolutely. Cast some characters for you in your life and yeah, make them your experts. I love that. Okay. A few final shorter philosophical questions. If you had unlimited resources and no operational constraints, what experiment would you like to run? [1:09:38] The thing that I would like to do would be to create a collectively trained medical assistant that's available for free to anyone who has access to a device. [1:09:52] And then iterate and learn from it. I suspect that if we were to do that, it would be enormously cheap. And if you think about the well north of 8 billion people in the world, I think three quarters of them are mobile connected. [1:10:05] I don't know if that's always data, right? But like mobile connected, but you could also use SMS and other things for this. And what would you do for the state of humanity if that was available to everybody basically for free?

[1:10:18] We should do that. I mean, I don't know what role I would play, but that should happen. That would be incredible. My guess is that humans will take a little bit to adopt, [1:10:29] But my guess is you'd start seeing amazing things within weeks. Yeah. That's incredible. That's such a good idea. What practice should we borrow from another culture or era? [1:10:39] Oh. Perhaps an Egyptian one, who knows? Yeah, the mummification stuff. I think it was interesting to learn, but no. One of the things that I think [1:10:48] I do this, but I don't think, and some other people do, but I don't think we do enough, is kind of the salon dinner party. [1:10:55] Right? Like kind of, you know, like Jefferson had a, you know, Jeffersonian dinners. It's many eras. [1:11:02] But I think the kind of the serious dinner party... [1:11:07] that is we're getting together and we're going to talk about [1:11:11] like serious things. [1:11:13] And it could be pre-done in advance. It could be, you know, kind of, no, we'll just talk about the news of the day. But kind of the notion of doing that and that entertainment isn't just going out to the club or going to the movies or going to theater or, you know, but like that kind of thing I think would be a, like, it's the kind of thing I've thought about if I wasn't kind of traveling around so much, like instituting a, like a weekly dinner salon would be something that I think would be a good thing. [1:11:43] for everyone to do. Yeah, sort of single threaded conversations perhaps, you know, that sort of thing. Okay, final one, which is really...

[1:11:51] for me after this conversation to look up. If you were to recommend a sort of brief curriculum of philosophy and science fiction for people to meet this moment in history, what would be a few of the picks? So I'll start with the easier one, which is the science fiction one, because that'll give me a little bit of background process for the philosophy one. For the utopian, Ian Banks, [1:12:15] Player of Games, Look to Winward, Accession, David Brin, Star Tide Rising, because it's kind of the uplift idea, which was a very interesting, prescient idea that I think people still haven't. [1:12:30] fully tracked, you know, helping dolphins and chimpanzees and everyone else get kind of intelligent. Murderbot series by Martha Wells, I think, is an interesting kind of lens into. It's kind of like the, think of it a bit as like the Ender's Game. [1:12:45] of kind of, you know, AI [1:12:48] constructs [1:12:49] um and it's fun it's it's it's not necessarily massively deep but in its funness it has some [1:12:55] good elements. And there's probably still a long list that goes on from there, but that's kind of some good things to start with on the science fiction side. And then in philosophy, obviously, I always kind of recommend Wittgenstein. It's a little hard in its primary source. Funny, for the particular technological moments here in London, Alanda Botten [1:13:18] - Does a whole bunch of stuff on School of Life, which makes philosophy more approachable for key things, like how to live a good life and how to work well. It's not specifically the technological moment. It kind of gives me the idea that I should talk to him some of the, about the technological moment, and probably reach out and have breakfast with him, presuming he's in town sometime in the next week or two. There's a bunch of philosophy that I've been tracking

[1:13:41] that has to do with kind of like how are we modeling mental states and representation that's not necessarily the everyday person. It's like, for example, from a few decades ago, there's Adrian Cousins and others doing sub-conceptual content here in the UK, Ron Chrisley at Sussex, like David Chalmers and others who are doing stuff. I think I may have to, maybe we'll have [1:14:11] This could be, or maybe we'll just do these, but also in our written dialogues, maybe this would be an area that we could do because I kind of want to think through which of the [1:14:23] call it combination of deep and easily approachable doesn't require an in-depth philosophy background. Yeah. It's tough to find that overlap a lot of times. But anyway, Reid, it has been, yeah, just as even more lovely than I could have imagined. And thank you so much for taking the time. Likewise. I look forward to the next. Same here. [1:14:53] Ratings and reviews help others discover these discussions, so if you enjoyed the conversation, [1:14:58] I'd be grateful if you could take a moment to leave one. [1:15:01] For all past episodes and more, [1:15:03] Visit us at thegeneralist.substack.com. [1:15:06] dot com. [1:15:07] See you next time as we continue to explore. [1:15:10] the future.

[1:15:12] .