WEBVTT - The Story: Beyond AI Doom and Gloom w/ Reid Hoffman 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.200 Welcome to Tech Stuff. This is the story. Each week 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:05.880 on Wednesdays, we bring you an in depth interview with 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:08.000 someone who has a front row seat to the most 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:12.120 fascinating things happening in tech today. We're joined by Reid Hoffman, 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:18.840 a longtime entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author. Born in the 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.079 Bay Area and part of a Silicon Valley crowd in 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.919 the nineties, he's helped build or support some of the 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:25.759 biggest tech companies we know today. 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:26.920 He worked at. 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.000 Apple in its early days, he was part of the 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.640 so called PayPal mafia as one of its first employees, 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.479 and he co founded LinkedIn, which he later sold to 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:39.320 Microsoft for twenty six point two billion dollars. Nowadays, he's 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.360 turned his attention to AI. As an early investor and 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.640 former board member for Open Ai. Hoffman is an optimist 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.199 about the benefits that AI could bring to society, so 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.200 much so that he wrote a book about it called Superagency. 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.800 What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future? And, 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:57.960 although it might not be a surprising position for a 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.520 tech investor to hold, also an outlier in some ways. 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.080 In the book, he argues that concerns and criticisms about 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:10.040 AI development shouldn't be dismissed, and in last year's presidential race, 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:14.360 he supported Kamala Harris, unlike many former Democrat donors in 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.840 the valley who have since aligned with Donald Trump. This 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.800 decision has had consequences for Hoffman, who is regularly castigated 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.360 on social media. We speak about that later in the conversation, 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.480 but we start with the book. Read. Was a guest 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.400 several times on the Charlie Rose Show for previous books, 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.039 and I worked there as a producer for many years, 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.120 so I thought I'd start with that. And one of 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.520 Charlie's favorite questions for authors was to say, every great 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.639 book begins with a great question. What's the question behind 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:47.960 your book? Now you've somewhat preempted that by actually putting 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:51.680 the question on the front of your book. Can you 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.080 talk about the question and why it's an important one? 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.040 So? What could possibly go right with our AI future? 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.920 And the short answer is were to have this major 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:07.360 AI technological revolution, and the general discourse is, oh, my god, 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.520 AI is coming. You know, the end is nigh. And actually, 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.160 in fact, you can only get to the future that 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.400 is good by steering towards it, not by trying to 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.160 avoid the futures You don't want. And so the goal 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.160 of the book is to give people good argument and 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.040 grounding and tool set for understanding how to think about 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.480 what could possibly go right. And then you know, we 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:36.040 individually and collectively navigate there. So that's the question and challenge, 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.440 and that's part of the reason why we wrote Superagency. 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:44.560 The title Superagency. You almos Wills Isaacson recently and you 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.680 said something I thought was very revealing which already captured 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.440 it for me, which was Tim Cook's iPhone is the 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.720 same one that the cab driver and the uber driver 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.160 is using. So explain that and how it clarifies superagency. 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.000 So part of superagency, and there's we actually compact a 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.880 lot into this term. It's the increase of human agency, 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.160 but not just the individual agency human agency, but also 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:12.600 society collective superagency. And part of the question when you 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.240 begin to build these technologies, because you know, a classic 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:17.920 question is well, does it only benefit the most powerful? 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.240 Does it only benefit the elites? And actually, in fact, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.360 when you do technology targeting superagency, eg. Hundreds of millions 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.040 of people, billions of people engaging, we all get the 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.440 same technology. And so for example, as what I said earlier, 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.120 Tim Cook has the same iPhone that the Uber driver 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:40.200 does that by engaging in it in mass adoption, it 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.640 then becomes elevating. And that doesn't mean that Tim isn't 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.400 much wealthier, much more powerful, et cetera than the Uber driver, 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:51.720 but the piece of technology is elevating across the broad 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.119 swath of society. And that's the same thing, of course, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.200 we're seeing with AI, which is you know, chat GBT 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.920 in its release, which is hundreds of millions of people 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:00.760 who now use it. 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.840 So in the book, there's this framework of four different 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.440 ways of thinking about AI development. In some sense, can 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.880 you kind of explain what each of them is and 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:12.120 where you sit? 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:21.120 Yes, So it's doomers, gloomers, zoomers, and bloomers. And just 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.680 in case anyone was thinking that, like you know, I'm 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:28.360 castigating names, the doomers actually do call themselves doomers. They 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.000 even have this thing called p doom, which is probability 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:36.840 of doom. The doomers are basically AI's bad, that the 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.120 at least very high probability is it will be destructive 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:46.120 to human potential, human society, maybe just might be existentially destructive, 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:51.159 and that the best outcome is stop, don't make AI 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.520 until we can absolutely guarantee that every single step would 0:04:54.520 --> 0:05:00.440 be positive. Gloomers are, Yeah, we understand, and that AI 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.039 is inevitable. Namely, you know, companies are going to compete. 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:06.320 Industries are going to compete. Countries are going to compete. 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.159 But it's just likely to make society bad. It's likely 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.120 to you know, make massive changes into the workforce, so 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.200 like jobs will go away and people will be unemployed 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.840 in breadlines and a lot of unhappiness. It may be 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.960 destructive to democracy, it might be destructive personal freedoms, you know, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.320 et cetera, et cetera. But it's gonna happen anyway, and 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:32.120 so I'm just gloomy about it. Hence gloomers. Zoomers are 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.160 on their far other end, which is, no, this is 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.000 going to be great. It's the most amazing thing that 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.560 humanity has done ever. And what's great so far outstrips 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.719 everything that possibly even may be wrong, that we should 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.840 just hit the accelerator and go full on, and let 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.560 me tell you about all the amazing things with medicine 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.480 and education and work assistance and all the rest of 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.600 that in productivity, and you know, obviously I have a 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.080 bunch of sympathies for a bunch of the positives of 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.159 the Zoomers. But I myself, of course identify myself as 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:09.839 a bloomer, which is essentially an accelerationist and a future 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.839 oriented like a zoomer. But it's also saying, hey, just 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.000 because you can make it with technology doesn't mean it's 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.680 inevitably good. That there's different ways of introducing it and 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.279 navigating through it, namely the way that it's introduced and 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.760 brought into human experience and existence at scale, and so 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:31.279 engaging with the folks who have concerns, criticisms. You know, 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.160 watch out for this pothole, watch out for this mine. 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.800 Is a good thing as you're navigating. Even as you're 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:42.520 navigating with some speed and acceleration, the Bloomers say, hey, 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.800 let's be in dialogue. Let's try to steer around at 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.040 anything that might be a landmine as we build this 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:49.280 great future. 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.080 And I guess if you could waive your magic wand 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.760 would you convert fifty percent of gloomers to your camp 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:57.960 or fifty percent of Zoomers to your camp. 0:06:58.320 --> 0:06:59.880 So if I get away with want, I would con 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.840 gloomers to Bloomers. But that doesn't mean I'm not also 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.159 trying to convert zoomers. And you know, as best I 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:12.840 can parse it, call it a quasi Gloomer quasi doomer 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.280 set of concerns, which is I said, well, there is 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.440 this danger, we should just stop. I'll give you an 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.600 example that I think is frequently amongst the people who 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.920 think about existential risk or X risk, And they go, 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.720 can you guarantee to me that you're going to not 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.200 that someone isn't going to make a killer robot all 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.520 out of the terminator? And you go nope, can't guarantee that. 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:38.640 They go, aha, see, that's an existential risk, and so therefore, 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.640 looking at that existential risk, we should stop or pause 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.520 or slow down. He say, well, it sounds like a rational, 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.680 reasonable argument, except when you consider that existential risk is 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.560 not each one off thing. It's a portfolio. It's a basket. 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.640 So it's a basket that includes nuclear war, it's a 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.880 basket that includes climate change, the basket includes pandemics, a 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.840 basket that includes a whole bunch of things. So you say, hey, 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.120 you're building AI. That becomes a new existential risk. He's like, yep, 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.119 that becomes a new excentral risk. But if you're doing AI, 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:15.240 Are you also mitigating you know, pandemic risk? Right, That's 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.200 the only way I can think of to combat scale pandemics, 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.960 both natural and I made is AI. Are you contravening 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.200 asteroid risk? Because the ability to see which asteroids might 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:27.240 be the ones that might be coming for us early 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.400 enough to do something about it, and to be able 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:31.880 to kind of navigate doing something about it well, AI 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.600 is actually likely to be pretty central to that equation. 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.480 And so my point of view is our existential risk 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:42.120 overall goes down, and so that earlier argument doesn't actually, 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:42.960 in fact really work. 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.359 That's a truly dventuhift framework for thinking about a portfolio 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.320 of risks. That's interesting. 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:49.960 Yeah, And by the way, that doesn't mean that you 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.679 don't try to minimize the killer robot risk and you 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:54.880 don't try to maximize the benefit in the other cases. 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.480 It doesn't mean you have no dialogue, don't talk about risk. No, no, no. 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.120 Talking about risk is good. But part of what I'm 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.840 trying to do with superagency and things like this is 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.280 to say, talk about the risk in a way that 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.840 you said that you're being smart about it, and you're 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.679 trying to kind of be smart in iterative stages about 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.400 the portfolio of them, and also that you're not trying 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.160 to overly dramatize your own genius like anyone who says 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:20.840 I know exactly what AI is going to be like 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.520 in five years from now, either for positive or for negative, 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.640 they're both nuts, right. I mean, it's like we're discovering 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:29.520 this as we're going. Yeah. 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:31.840 I think one of the things that comes across in 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:37.800 your book is how different platform technologies have allowed humanity 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.320 to move from a subsistence way of living to way 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.200 of living that allows for leisure and self reflection and 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.839 all of those types of things. And you wrote a 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.520 piece about this for The New York Times called AI 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.800 Will Empower Humanity. You wrote, AI could turn data into 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.280 the material for a de facto's second self, one that 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.720 could endow even the most sketchy brain down my us 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.640 with a capacity for revisiting the past with a level 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.920 of detail. Even the novelist Marcel Proost might envy. Can 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:09.840 you explain that vision? 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:14.120 Look so at a macro view. I think within a 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.800 small number of years, all of us will have AI 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.360 agents helping us with things, and it'll be helping us 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:24.680 with like work things and learning and other kinds of things, 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.880 but also helping us with like the kind of the 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:33.479 daily activity of our lives, which include, for example, remembering 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.880 things like so frequently. Of course people say, oh, wait, 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:38.920 you're remembering this about me, and maybe you can sell 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.600 you can manipulate me into buying something or selling me 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.600 an ad all bad. I am losing agency. I've lost 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.640 privacy of my information. It's like, well, actually, in fact, 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:52.840 think about what a positive feature this is, because, by 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:54.559 the way, if it remembers something about me, it can 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:56.960 help me remember it. It can help me. You know, 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.280 like I'm navigating and I'm having this conversation with odds 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.040 and it says, hey, you guys met before here and 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.199 you talked about this. Oh, that's really helpful, makes our 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:05.160 connection better. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.480 That's why I started with the allusion to a shed 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.839 past at Charlie Roads the case in point, yes. 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:14.040 Exactly, and and you know part of that actually, in fact, 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.960 when when the memory is for me and of help 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.600 to me, of in service to me, that's extremely positive. 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.600 The allusion to proost was kind of irresistible to me. 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:28.640 The remembrance of things past. 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.520 Remember things passed, and how do the events of a 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:35.680 life coalesced to her self, right, And so of course 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:40.560 I got curious about you and you were recently on 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:45.280 the podcast with Stephen Bartlet Diary vs. CEO, and you said, 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.960 you know, you have to understand this journey started with 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.079 being born in Stamford Hospital. What role did that play 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.560 in read as a bloomer? 0:11:55.640 --> 0:12:00.880 Well, definitely being a California and I child of the 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:05.040 Bay Area definitely helps me be open minded and curious 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.240 to understand that technology is part of what makes us human. 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.480 A little bit like again, the kind of the Marcel 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.679 Proof's gesture is, you know, I've kind of I argue 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.479 that we're actually better described as homotechne than Homo sapiens 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.240 because we evolve through a technology, not just obviously through 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.600 remote podcasts like this, or glasses or clothing or cars 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.640 or smartphones, but it's but it's like it's who we are. 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.600 We internalize this technology. It makes us. It's part of 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.920 what we evolve very very very slowly genetically, but actually 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:41.560 we evolve very fast culturally, technologically, and that's part of 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.240 who we become and all of that. I think by 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.240 being you know, a child of the San Francisco Bay Area, 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.120 you have the openness and laissez faire to say, hey, 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.920 you can invent something and change the world. And you know, 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.280 it's not just Silicon Valley but also Hollywood, and you know, 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:03.840 it's kind of that direction of what's next is much 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.400 more interesting than what was. And it doesn't mean what 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.760 was is irrelevant and what was doesn't inform what's next, 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.880 and you can't learn things from what was, but it's 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.960 live into the future and live into that change, I 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.400 think is really fundamental. And I think that helped, you know, 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.840 shape how I think about things and kind of the 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:25.400 reason I'm so future oriented. 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.760 Yeah, And I think that's what makes you know your 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:33.720 views on AI particularly interesting because in the nineties, at 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:37.600 the birth of the consumer Internet, you saw around the corner, right, 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.200 I mean, you understood that the Internet would be social networking. 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.480 You founded a company called Social net You're one of 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:49.800 the first investors in Facebook, and you founded LinkedIn. What 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.680 gave you that fundamental insight about what the Internet would become. 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:55.480 So I think, you know, one of the things I 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.640 think is fundamental to being an investor or a founder 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.280 in especially the consumer consumer and our products is having 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.240 a theory of human nature, and it's about the individual 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.400 human nature and then kind of collective and you know, 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.320 part of that kind of thesis is where you know, 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.760 we're tribal creatures, we're we're social animals in this way, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.760 and you know that is part of the kind of 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.600 the fundamental you know, kind of theory of human beings. 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:24.360 I have then in rolls the Internet and you think, well, okay, 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.360 the Internet does all kinds of useful things like bringing 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.080 up information ability, shop by things. But I was like, well, 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.440 but actually in that changes our social space, changes our 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.480 social space in terms of how we think of ourselves, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.320 who we think we're connected to, how we communicate, which 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.360 groups were part of you know, kind of information flow 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.480 and recommendations, and that all gets to kind of the 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:46.960 web two oh side. And so that that was my 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:51.480 recognition of you know, when when the Internet was you know, 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:53.240 first being talked about, it was like, oh, it's an 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.360 information ecosystem, you know, you know HTML. It's like I 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.560 ask for the document and I get the document, and 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.880 I was like, that's cool. But actually, in fact, we 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.200 are social animals, you know, we are citizens of the polis. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.240 So how does being people get into this? 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:13.360 The insight you have about how the Internet sort of 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:20.440 recreates it social relationships that led to LinkedIn. He's very 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:24.680 very clear to me, what is the equivalent insight about 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:25.720 the age of AI. 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:32.480 So I think it's this notion that AI gives us 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:37.520 superpowers and that those superpowers will and they'll change. Like 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.440 what's like what our previous superpowers were. It's just like, 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.880 for example, you know, before you had the book, memory 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:47.680 was a critical superpower. It was kind of like the 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:51.840 no no, I can recite the Iliad to you and 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:53.960 and and having that and actual part of was what 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.480 described about in printing presses destroying human capabilities, like, oh 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:02.600 my god, there's this critical human cognitive function of really remembering, 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:04.680 and now that's going to be destroyed and that's going 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.600 to reduce our humanity. And you're like, well, no, actually, 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.600 induct doesn't. Over time, it increases their humanity because it's 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.640 opposed to only emphasizing memory for doing anything else, you 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.560 can also bring in many other forms of intelligence. And 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.800 the same parallel I think goes to AI. You say, well, 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:21.640 you know, you listen to people that oh, it's going 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.680 to destroy our ability to think critically because I'm just 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.600 gonna ask, you know, GBD four or pie to reason 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.480 for me, you know, Gemini to give me the answer. 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.440 Co Pilot two, you know, do Visa coding for me, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.000 and I don't have to think anymore. I'll just you know, 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.480 eat cookies and sit on the sit on the sofa. 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:42.880 And you're like, well, obviously, with any technology people can 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.440 be lazy and do stuff. But on the other hand, 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.680 what it means is you now have new attributes. For example, 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.080 most of us get a little sloppier on our spelling 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.600 because we recly and the spell checker for solving it. 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:55.320 But that means because we're thinking about other things, we're 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.840 thinking about what the point is, how to architect it, 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:02.120 and so I think it's giving us superpowers. They'll actually 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:03.640 help us become even more human. 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.439 After the break, Reid Hoffman tells us about how his 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:32.880 background influenced his worldview. Stay with us, Welcome back. While 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.720 preparing for this interview, I stumbled across a twenty to 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.240 fifteen New Yorker profile of Reid Hoffman. This was back 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.520 in his LinkedIn days, and I found his background to 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.080 be quite revealing. One thing that really struck me, I 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.760 guess because it resonates in my own experience, is that 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.760 you are the only child of parents who divorced when 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.399 you were very young, as am I, and then you 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.879 went to boarding school where you had the experience of 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.000 being a fish out of water lead to a certain extent, 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.320 which is also an experience that I had. And so, 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.119 you know, one of the things I've observed about my 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.840 life is I've become very very interested in networks, both 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.840 both both wide and deep. Is extremely important to me 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.720 to feel connected with other people. And so I don't 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.720 want to pop psychologize you, but we're talking about Proust 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.560 and AI to know yourself better and stuff. Have you 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:27.399 thought about how that childhood experience affected your view of 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.080 networks and technological development? 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:35.640 Interesting, it certainly affected my views of human nature, certainly 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.560 affected my views of were I what my role in 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:46.480 this grand play of humanity and human nature is? Maybe 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:52.159 not least because feeling somewhat alienated from my fellow schoolmates, 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.919 reading a lot of science fiction and thinking about things 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.000 I would say, and maybe this that it's most core, 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.800 which is like probably one of the very deep beliefs 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:09.560 I have, which is I think arguable from an induction standpoint, 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.160 but not ever. But many people don't hold this, which 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.680 is the future can be so much better than the now. 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.400 We just have to try to shape it to being so. 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.000 So you go, well, I'm unhappy with, you know, being 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.280 in the Lord of the Flies boarding school. Well, okay, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:26.720 you know, how can we make this better? What are 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:28.720 the things to do? And oh, look, technology is a 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:30.960 tool for this, you know, as a way of kind 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:31.639 of operating. 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.159 Is it true that you'd like to ask the question 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.639 who's in your tribe? 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.600 Yes, although it's more because you know, we are tribal 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.320 creatures and you know whatnot, But it's kind of a 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.040 little bit more of it's almost like a friendship question, 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.240 like who are your five best friends and why? And 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.240 who are they? Because some agree like who are you? 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:55.879 Is you're a cross product to your friends. You've chosen 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.600 these people who you share values with in alignment with 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:03.359 a the way the world should be, a people that 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.880 you're willing to defend the moral character of and say, hey, 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.320 this person's a really good person in the world. And 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:13.400 so that version of tribe. 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.840 Yes, and you've reached a point where two definitions of 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.480 tribe are kind of interacting, right. I mean that the 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.320 New Yorker profile the opening scene was you and Mark 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:30.840 Pinkas sitting together talking about advising Obama about how to 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.119 use social networks and technology to you know, extends to 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.359 extend the reach of the messaging. You were both big 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:41.240 Obama donors. Obviously, Mark Pinkus broke for Trump, as did 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.920 Mark Andrews, and as did many who you grew up with, 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.880 and I'm imagine you count as close personal friends. I mean, 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:51.760 how how have you dealt with that? 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.920 Well, it's complicated and difficult. It kind of comes down 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:03.160 to what was theirs and for doing that, because when 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.240 their reason was, for example, like Mark Pinkus, who had 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.880 a particular set of views about the two different presidential candidates, 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:16.000 willingness to support the state of Israel to understand kind 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.000 of it being under attack and feeling that you know, 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.240 part of of course, these centuries of human existence have 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:26.800 been intensely anti Semitism and genocide against people of the 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.840 Jewish faith and Jewish descent and having a place to 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.840 protect them and saying, hey, I think Trump will be 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:37.560 better for this than you know, Harris, that's a moral 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:41.639 I actually disagree with the judgment, but I understand that 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.960 kind of reasoning from a moral point of view. It's 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.040 the it isn't just about me, And so so for 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.600 you know, Mark Pinkus, you know, it's it's been difficult 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:56.320 conversations but fundamentally part of that life journey. And there's 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:59.280 other Silicon Valley people it's very similar, like whether they're 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.679 very focused on crypto or other things where I again 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.080 say I wouldn't vote a single issue crypto in this election, 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:10.200 but for them that was frequently the argument is like, wow, 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:12.879 the Democrats and Republicans are the same. It's like, no, 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.680 they're not right, and I think I can make that case. 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:20.119 And then there's other folks who you know, kind of 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:27.080 reveal that they don't actually in fact have kind of 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.480 moral characters on this, that it's just about their own power, 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:35.080 their own their own you know, kind of like more 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:40.520 about me. And then you know those folks I am 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:44.240 between not friends with and less friends with, and you 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.440 know all the rest of it. And many of them, 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:48.439 you know, I don't really talk to at the moment. 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:50.800 And it isn't I don't talk to them because they 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:54.359 supported Trump. It's I don't talk to them because the 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:59.440 reason that they're supporting Trump is for their own benefit, 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:01.840 not for him, humanity or society's benefit. 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.160 I have a hypothesis that if you presented the Zoomer 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:13.480