S1: Ideas. Sam Altman is simultaneously building AGI and doing big
S1: studies on UBI. Super obvious what he's doing, in fact. Oh,
S1: this is kind of hot off the press here, because
S1: I just did this analysis with fabric, and I saw
S1: a tweet thread about this as well, the UBI study
S1: that came out. This is not in the newsletter. This
S1: just happened this morning. This UBI study that OpenAI put out,
S1: which was funded by essentially Altman. It turns out at
S1: least one of the interpretations and some of the manual
S1: work that I just did doing AI analysis on the results,
S1: it did not increase a lot of the things that
S1: they were hoping. They're spinning it as a very positive outcome,
S1: and I'm sure they said there is some minor positive outcomes,
S1: but in general, it did not encourage people to be
S1: more ambitious. It did not encourage people to go and
S1: get more work. It didn't do that. Um, so it
S1: looks a bit bad. Now. I think we need to
S1: do more analysis to say for sure that UBI is
S1: not going to massively help, or it's not going to
S1: help people be more ambitious or more creative or more productive,
S1: which which I think is the hope. The hope is
S1: that or the idea here is that ambitious people are
S1: lucky people who have the time and energy to go
S1: and be ambitious, and that when you look at people
S1: who are struggling and they're not ambitious, it's likely because
S1: they have too many jobs. You know, they got too
S1: much drama in their lives. There's too much going on.
S1: And if that were to not be the case, if
S1: they were, we were able to reduce their stress. They
S1: would become just like the go getters and just like
S1: the ambitious and smart people. And this study, being so large,
S1: has the ability to undo that narrative a bit and
S1: basically say that there's a chance here We need to
S1: do full analysis of this, but there's a chance here
S1: that what it uncovers is that no ambitious people have
S1: something else. They have this ambition and drive that lets
S1: them thrive almost despite whatever is going on. So if
S1: they have lots of burdens on them, they're going to
S1: find a way through. Unless they're overwhelming, of course. But
S1: given the same amount of burden, people with this attribute
S1: of like drive and self-discipline and ambition, they're just going
S1: to crush it. They're going to find a way to
S1: crush it. And the whole narrative for this UBI thing
S1: was that, no, everyone has that. And I think I'm
S1: old enough at this point to realize, no, not everyone
S1: has special beans or special magic. It really is a
S1: small portion of, you know, society who is in the
S1: top 10% of a given thing. I mean, just by
S1: the numbers. Like only 10% can be in the 10%,
S1: right So I think first we need to confirm that
S1: this is what it's saying. But even if it is
S1: saying the worst possible thing, which is no, this doesn't
S1: actually make people more ambitious. It doesn't really matter. We
S1: still have to keep looking for the thing that is
S1: the ambition. We still have to find the source of
S1: this thing that is so valuable to us, which is
S1: people who are driven and ambitious. Now, if it's genetic, well,
S1: then I don't care, right? But we're not we're not
S1: going to be changing genetics, right. Any time soon anyway.
S1: So it's like, I don't care if we find that
S1: there's more ambition in this group or less ambition in
S1: that group, because those numbers are likely to be so
S1: tiny compared to what we can control. You know, even
S1: if they exist and they might not even exist. It
S1: might be all environment. But I mean, this is a
S1: three year study. This doesn't control, like what went into
S1: their their upbringing and their childhood and everything Um, because
S1: if you look at cultures where they have this really,
S1: really strong drive and ambition and everything. It's part of
S1: their actual culture. This is like they pop out of
S1: the womb and it's like, pick your college, right? You
S1: were told from a very early age that you must
S1: be producing. It's your responsibility to give back to community.
S1: All your family members are looking up to you. You
S1: know you owe us. You owe society. Quality outputs. And
S1: you must work hard to create those that cultural influence
S1: and power. Plus all the peers that come with it. Plus,
S1: then you go to nice colleges and they all believe
S1: the same thing. That entire mechanism is what we need
S1: to give to the entire world. Okay. That that is
S1: the thing that I believe is creating ambitious people. So
S1: you do a three year study on UBI, you find
S1: out that doesn't make people into those people Fine, fine.
S1: Something is. and I believe it's that entire culture as
S1: a package. And that's the thing that we need to
S1: give to everyone. That's our responsibility. And if the world
S1: were more like that, the world would would be better.
S1: First of all, that automatically fixes crime. If you're trying
S1: to build things and doing things and you're busy, that
S1: automatically fixes literacy crime, like so many different things that
S1: are a problem. So I just I don't see this
S1: as too negative. I see it as a little bit negative,
S1: but positive in the sense that it's going to uncover
S1: the real issues, which is how to propagate successful mental
S1: models and frames, um, in a wider scope across wider
S1: groups of people, across the entire planet. And I think
S1: that's the problem we need to focus on and move
S1: towards solving.