Speaker 1: I'm Emily Chang, and this is the circuit. I've been
Speaker 1: covering this industry for a long time, and there is
Speaker 1: always some new new thing that big tech is chasing.
Speaker 1: First it was self driving cars, and then it was
Speaker 1: the metaverse, and now everyone is all in on AI.
Speaker 1: Now there's one big tech giant that's made it clear
Speaker 1: it's not missing out. Microsoft is OpenAI's main commercial partner,
Speaker 1: trading powerful servers and billions.
Speaker 2: Of dollars for access to chat.
Speaker 1: GPT, sparking new life into old products, especially their languishing
Speaker 1: search engine.
Speaker 2: So it's as big as the inner I think it's
Speaker 2: as big.
Speaker 1: But winning in AI is a totally different story. I'm
Speaker 1: about to talk to Microsoft CEO Satsia Nadella to find
Speaker 1: out how he thinks he can do it. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to open ai CEO Sam Altman in a moment, but first,
Speaker 1: a new AI chatbot is helping Nadella in some surprising ways.
Speaker 1: Have you been playing around with a lot like fun
Speaker 1: stuff discovery?
Speaker 3: I am super verbose and polite now in email responses.
Speaker 4: It's watching. Yeah, it's always it was fun.
Speaker 3: Like the guy who leads our office team, and I
Speaker 3: was responding to him and he was like, what is
Speaker 3: this man?
Speaker 4: You're like sort of so pleasant. That's amazing. How about
Speaker 4: the chat, the bing chat? I mean, have you been
Speaker 4: what have you been using it to search for?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: You know, interesting enough everything right from the very schedules
Speaker 3: to like the biggest thing I have felt is such
Speaker 3: you always used it to learn new things.
Speaker 4: And what have you. But you never stay in the floor.
Speaker 3: Because you get distracted by you click it, go away,
Speaker 3: whereas here you can stay.
Speaker 4: On task and on one topic and go deep.
Speaker 3: It's sort of very habit forming in the sense that
Speaker 3: once you get used to having chat, even if I'm
Speaker 3: using it one because there's a lot of times I'm
Speaker 3: just navigating using search as a navigational tool, but once
Speaker 3: you get used to it, you kind of feel like,
Speaker 3: I got to have these rails, right, So.
Speaker 2: Once you try it, you're hooked.
Speaker 1: Microsoft has been working on AI for decades and chatbots
Speaker 1: actually aren't anything new, but all of a sudden everyone
Speaker 1: is salivating. Why do you think the moment for AI
Speaker 1: is now?
Speaker 3: AI has been here, in fact, its mainstream right.
Speaker 4: I mean, search is an AI product.
Speaker 3: Even the current generation of search, every news aggregation recommendation
Speaker 3: and you know, YouTube or e commerce or TikTok or
Speaker 3: all AI products, except that all I would say, today's
Speaker 3: generation of AI is all autopilot. In fact, it's a
Speaker 3: black box that we just sort of use that is
Speaker 3: dictating in fact, how our attention is focused. Whereas going forward,
Speaker 3: the thing that's most exciting about this generation of AI
Speaker 3: is perhaps we move from autopilot to copilot where we
Speaker 3: actually prompt it. I think this shift from autopilot to
Speaker 3: copilot is actually, yes, the next phase of AI, which
Speaker 3: in fact is perhaps going to put us as humans,
Speaker 3: you know, more in the center of using AI to
Speaker 3: our benefit.
Speaker 1: How transformative a change do you think this will be
Speaker 1: in how we work?
Speaker 3: But I think that probably the biggest difference maker will
Speaker 3: be business chat because if you think about the most
Speaker 3: important database in any company is the database underneath all
Speaker 3: of your productivity software.
Speaker 4: Except that data is all siloed today.
Speaker 3: But now I can quariate with natural I can say, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to meet this customer. Can you tell me
Speaker 3: the last time I met them? Can you bring up
Speaker 3: all the documents that are written about this customer and
Speaker 3: summarize it so that I am current on what I
Speaker 3: need to be prepped for how do you make.
Speaker 1: Sure it's not clippy to point out that it is
Speaker 1: helpful delightful, doesn't want to make me click out asap.
Speaker 4: Two sets of things. One is you know you're laughing
Speaker 4: because because look.
Speaker 3: Like our industry is full of lots of you know,
Speaker 3: examples from Clippy to even let's say current generation of
Speaker 3: these assistants and so on, they all are brittle. I
Speaker 3: think we are also going to have to learn that ultimately,
Speaker 3: these are tools. Just like anytime somebody sends me a draft,
Speaker 3: I review the draft, I just don't accept the draft.
Speaker 3: And so that ability to work with this co pilot,
Speaker 3: give it feedback, know how to verify it. It's literally
Speaker 3: like inspecting somebody's homework, right, which is, hey, tell me
Speaker 3: exactly how you did this and so that I can verify.
Speaker 4: Those are the kinds of things that we'll learn.
Speaker 1: You're trying to reinvent search with this AI powered thing,
Speaker 1: and I believe it's been using GPT for.
Speaker 4: For a while now.
Speaker 2: What's worked what hasn't.
Speaker 3: One thing that we're learning is the search context, right,
Speaker 3: So conversational search is a thing. So this grounding of
Speaker 3: your commonation with search data, I think is one mode,
Speaker 3: and then there is a completely different.
Speaker 4: Mode that we're also learned, which is people just want
Speaker 4: to chat.
Speaker 3: So we are now getting good and even the product
Speaker 3: designed so that we make that an explicit choice.
Speaker 4: So for example, when we launched being.
Speaker 3: We didn't have these three modes. We now have how
Speaker 3: precise do you want it to be? Or how creative
Speaker 3: you want to be or you want to be balanced?
Speaker 3: That I think is one of the biggest learnings we
Speaker 3: learned it that oh wow, people do in fact want
Speaker 3: to engage even in what is chat inside of search
Speaker 3: in different ways, and we've got to put the user
Speaker 3: control back.
Speaker 1: How much market share do you think you can really
Speaker 1: take from Google? Like your prediction, give me a thirteen
Speaker 1: year agree.
Speaker 4: We are thrilled to be in search.
Speaker 3: We're a very small player in search, and I look
Speaker 3: forward to every inch we gain is a big game.
Speaker 1: You're coming for Search, They're coming for office. They're now
Speaker 1: putting AI in there. You know, Google Docs and sheets
Speaker 1: and Gmail. Are we just going to see you in
Speaker 1: Sindar kind of one up each other every week and
Speaker 1: it's race to greatness.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I just want barred in being both to thrive.
Speaker 3: I just want Google Workspace and Microsoft three six why
Speaker 3: both to thrive? I mean, look, at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, the fun part of being in this industry
Speaker 3: and competing is the innovation and competition is the last
Speaker 3: time I checked a fantastic thing for users and the industry.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, I think you know Google's going to do.
Speaker 3: You know, is a very innovative company, and uh, and
Speaker 3: we have a lot of respect for them, and I
Speaker 3: expect us to compete in multiple categories.
Speaker 1: In my decade plus covering Microsoft, I can't remember you
Speaker 1: releasing this much in quick succession.
Speaker 2: Why is it all happening so fast?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, it's sort of sometimes it feels
Speaker 3: it's all happening fast.
Speaker 4: It's we started working.
Speaker 3: On this, you know, a good four years ago, right,
Speaker 3: I mean in some sense if you think about when
Speaker 3: open AI and Microsoft came together and said, hey, this
Speaker 3: next generation of large language models need new infrastructure. Let's
Speaker 3: build the infrastructure, tune the infrastructure, let's understand even what
Speaker 3: AI safety in alignment looks like for these.
Speaker 4: What are the use cases?
Speaker 3: And this has been four years plus in making so yes,
Speaker 3: it feels.
Speaker 4: That we've launched a lot of things just in a hurry.
Speaker 3: This year, but it's been four years in the making,
Speaker 3: and obviously it's a great partnership with OpenAI.
Speaker 1: Microsoft reportedly laid off a team focused on ethical and
Speaker 1: responsible AI. Meantime, you've got the Center for Humane Technology
Speaker 1: calling the race to AI a race to recklessness.
Speaker 2: How do you respond to that?
Speaker 3: In terms of impact on anybody at Microsoft? This is
Speaker 3: just probably the thing that weighs on me heavily, because
Speaker 3: after all, any restructuring is hard heart on the people
Speaker 3: who are most impacted.
Speaker 4: That said, two things.
Speaker 3: One is this is no longer a side thing for Microsoft,
Speaker 3: right because in some sense, whether it's design, whether it's alignment, safety, ethics,
Speaker 3: it's kind of like saying quality of performance and design
Speaker 3: core design. So I can't have now an AI team
Speaker 3: on the side. It's all the mainstream. So in some
Speaker 3: sense the hard process that companies like ours are going
Speaker 3: to constantly go through.
Speaker 4: A lot of change.
Speaker 3: And then I think, if anything, debate, dialogue and scrutiny
Speaker 3: on what is this space of innovation? Is it really
Speaker 3: creating benefits for society? I think are absolutely and I'll
Speaker 3: welcome it. Right, I look at it and say, no
Speaker 3: one can run faster than the benefits to the broader
Speaker 3: society and then the norms that we enforce as a
Speaker 3: democratic society on any technology. And so I feel like
Speaker 3: we are at the very early stages of it. So
Speaker 3: I would ask us to be open to it, but
Speaker 3: at the same time scrutinize it, and let's have a
Speaker 3: dialogue on what the benefits are. And in that context,
Speaker 3: let's also recognize, especially with this AI, why were we
Speaker 3: not asking ourselves, like the AI that's already in our
Speaker 3: lives and how what is it doing? It's right, we've
Speaker 3: gone straight to saying, oh wow, these l lens have
Speaker 3: some hallucination.
Speaker 4: Guess what.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of AI that I don't even know
Speaker 6: what it's doing, and except I'm happily clicking away and
Speaker 6: accepting the recommendations. So why don't we, in fact educate
Speaker 6: ourselves to ask all of what AI is doing in
Speaker 6: our lives and then say how to do it safely
Speaker 6: in an aligned way.
Speaker 1: Elon musk Kuko founded open ai and then left has
Speaker 1: said it's not what he intended. It is closed, sourced
Speaker 1: and effectively controlled by Microsoft.
Speaker 4: How would you respond?
Speaker 3: First of all, open ai cares deeply about their mission
Speaker 3: and doing it in the most safe way and in
Speaker 3: the most open way, and there's an interesting trade between
Speaker 3: openness and safety. So that is sort of one of
Speaker 3: the reasons why they have what they have in terms
Speaker 3: of their governance architecture, and so therefore at some level
Speaker 3: they have been very very clear on what principles drive them. Similarly,
Speaker 3: we have been very very clear on the print that
Speaker 3: drive us around AI safety and responsibility, and we'll stick
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you a question about the economy
Speaker 1: and whether you're concerned about a prolonged tech bust. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've seen the collapse of three banks, tighter money, more uncertainty.
Speaker 2: How are you thinking about this?
Speaker 3: I think at the highest levels, I think there was
Speaker 3: an aberration of maybe a ten year period of low
Speaker 3: interest rates and everything that came with it, not just
Speaker 3: in tech but in the broader economy, and I just
Speaker 3: think that we're just getting back to normal at least.
Speaker 3: The thing that perhaps we have to remind ourselves mostly
Speaker 3: the world looked like this, which is interest rates were
Speaker 3: higher than zero, Inflation was perhaps maybe structurally going to
Speaker 3: be higher, just given everything that's happening with supply chains
Speaker 3: in the geopolitics, and we all as businesses have to
Speaker 3: be accountable to how to manage in that environment, and
Speaker 3: tech is one sector. And so I kind of look
Speaker 3: at this and say, hey, it's a return to normal
Speaker 3: as opposed to anything sort of that we need to
Speaker 3: be worried about as being prolonged. In fact, this is
Speaker 3: the long run. The economies have to sort of be
Speaker 3: more real.
Speaker 2: All right, So this is normal to you.
Speaker 3: I mean I think that sometimes we sort of say,
Speaker 3: you know, the last ten years can never be sort
Speaker 3: of the way way forward, and it's good. I think
Speaker 3: it's better to have businesses that are run efficiently that
Speaker 3: have actually measured on the way, both whether it's on
Speaker 3: the societal impact or on real economic impact.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety five, Bill Gates Ente memo calling the
Speaker 1: Internet a title wave that would change all the rules
Speaker 1: and was going to be crucial to every part of
Speaker 1: the business.
Speaker 2: Is AI that big?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, in fact, I sort of say the
Speaker 3: chat GPT when it first came out was like when
Speaker 3: Mosaic first came out I think in nineteen ninety three
Speaker 3: as the first browser.
Speaker 4: And so yes, it does feel.
Speaker 3: Like you know, to the Bill memo in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 3: it does feel.
Speaker 4: Like that to me.
Speaker 1: So it's as big as the enter.
Speaker 4: I think it's as big.
Speaker 3: It's just like in all of these things, right we
Speaker 3: in the tech industry or you know, classic experts at
Speaker 3: overhyping everything. I hope at least that what motivates me
Speaker 3: is I want to use this technology to truly do
Speaker 3: what I think at least all of us are in
Speaker 3: tech for, which is democratizing access to it. So when
Speaker 3: someone says to me, hey, here is how a farmer
Speaker 3: in rural India, you know, can use this technology to
Speaker 3: express a complex thought on how to get a subsidy
Speaker 3: from a government program and can do that successfully.
Speaker 4: That gives me a lot of sort of you know, hope.
Speaker 1: I think a lot about my kids and how AI
Speaker 1: will have something that I don't, which is an infinite
Speaker 1: amount of time to spend with them, and how these
Speaker 1: chatbots are so friendly, and how quickly that could turn
Speaker 1: into an unhealthy relationship or you know, maybe it's nudging
Speaker 1: them to make a bad decision.
Speaker 2: As a parent, does any part of that scare you?
Speaker 3: So that's kind of one of the reasons why I
Speaker 3: think this moving from autopilot to this co pilot hopefully
Speaker 3: gives us more control, whether it's.
Speaker 4: As parents are more importantly even as children.
Speaker 3: Like one of the things that was very cool to
Speaker 3: see in the launch of GPT four was the demo
Speaker 3: or the launch of con academy stuff. Al sent me
Speaker 3: this last night and I was looking at his algebra class.
Speaker 3: It was so engaging, right, I mean, think about it,
Speaker 3: Like one of the dreams we've always had is can
Speaker 3: I have a personalized tutor that is engaging, that is
Speaker 3: actually trying to teach me. We should, of course be
Speaker 3: very very watchful of what happens, but at the same time,
Speaker 3: I think this generation of bots, in this generation of
Speaker 3: AI probably just go from engagement to more giving us
Speaker 3: more agency to learn.
Speaker 1: What do you think about GPT four and like how
Speaker 1: big aly it is?
Speaker 4: It is? It's pretty nonlinear, right.
Speaker 3: That's the advantage of these models is that they're showing
Speaker 3: generation to generation that they're getting more efficient at the
Speaker 3: current task, and they're showing emergent capability. Like for example,
Speaker 3: from GPD three to three five we learned the code,
Speaker 3: so similarly now it's sort of really like look at
Speaker 3: it's the performance on all those standardized tests. I mean
Speaker 3: that is pretty stunning reasoning. So the thing that I
Speaker 3: feel this is the closest thing we have to having
Speaker 3: a reasoning engine that all of us can use to better.
Speaker 4: Make sense of the world.
Speaker 3: And so going back to the kids' spot, like my
Speaker 3: daughter said this Sami the other day, which I think
Speaker 3: it was the most profound, which is it's kind of
Speaker 3: like having a study body and a tutor all at
Speaker 3: the same time.
Speaker 4: She was using bing chat.
Speaker 3: I think she had a PDF open and she was
Speaker 3: querrying the pdf, and it's kind of like, Wow, I'm
Speaker 3: able to ask questions, which you know, it's always not.
Speaker 3: We're not that like you and go to your tutorials
Speaker 3: or whatever it is that you need to go. It's
Speaker 3: so much easier to have this tool available to make
Speaker 3: better sense of the world.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think it's a tool that has its place.
Speaker 2: And you're just excited, not scared.
Speaker 3: That's kind of the big debate that right now, I
Speaker 3: am more excited.
Speaker 4: Like the reason is, even if.
Speaker 3: You narrowly look at it from a technology perspective, this
Speaker 3: is more empowering and more understandable than these recommendations on
Speaker 3: some social media site or what have you, which are
Speaker 3: being driven by some other black box engagement algorithms. So
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm open for pushback and scrutiny and debate
Speaker 3: on it. I don't think this is anyway close to AGI.
Speaker 3: We are not close to anything runaway AI problem jail breaks,
Speaker 3: yes we can, but this, you know, we can always
Speaker 3: learn and put them on safety rails.
Speaker 4: So I think we overstate the risk.
Speaker 3: We're understating the benefit, even in relation to current set
Speaker 3: of technolog.
Speaker 4: And its users and it's harms.
Speaker 3: That's kind of what I think would be a good
Speaker 3: one to actually pull out, Like, Hey, would I rather
Speaker 3: have this or a recommendation engine that I don't even
Speaker 3: know what it's doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, continue this conversation after this quick break.
Speaker 4: I want to ask about.
Speaker 1: Jobs, because obviously Microsoft makes software that helps people do
Speaker 1: their jobs, and I wonder if AI laid in software.
Speaker 2: Will put some people out of jobs.
Speaker 1: Saam Altman has this idea that AI is going to
Speaker 1: create this kind of utopia and generate wealth that's going
Speaker 1: to be enough to cut everyone a decent sized check
Speaker 1: but eliminate some jobs.
Speaker 2: Do you agree with that?
Speaker 3: You know, look a bit from kines to I guess Altman,
Speaker 3: they've all talked about the two day work week, and
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 4: But the point is, look, the lump of labor.
Speaker 3: Fallacy has never proven out right, which is in some
Speaker 3: sense there is displacement. And in fact, if anything, what
Speaker 3: we have to do is really do a fantastic job
Speaker 3: as a society to deal with any displacement, because if
Speaker 3: one job turns into another job, you have to then
Speaker 3: skill people on another job. And in fact, in an
Speaker 3: interesting way, here's one thing. Even in this Microsoft three
Speaker 3: sixty five tool, like there is this power automate tool.
Speaker 3: Up to now we've called it the low code no
Speaker 3: code tool for doing workflow automation. Interestingly enough, you now
Speaker 3: can automate workflows just using natural language.
Speaker 4: Guess what that means.
Speaker 3: Anybody who is in the front lines in healthcare and
Speaker 3: retail can automate or be part of the IT journey.
Speaker 3: That to me gives means their new jobs and better
Speaker 3: wage support. So I feel, yes, there's going to be
Speaker 3: some changes in jobs. There's going to be some places
Speaker 3: where there will be wage pressure, there will be opportunities
Speaker 3: for increased wages because of increased productivity. We should look
Speaker 3: at it all and at the same time being very
Speaker 3: clear eyed about any displacement risk, because one thing that
Speaker 3: we've also learned in the last twenty years is that
Speaker 3: any society that doesn't really pay attention to who are
Speaker 3: the winners and the losers and to make sure that
Speaker 3: as a society we are not really you know, imbalanced
Speaker 3: in it in terms of economic opportunity, we will be
Speaker 3: better on.
Speaker 1: At the center of a potentially tectonic shift in job
Speaker 1: creation is Sam Altman. He's promised that AI will create
Speaker 1: a kind of utopia when it joins the workforce, while
Speaker 1: also raising alarm about the dangers, signing his name to
Speaker 1: statements warning about the risk of extinction from AI. Over
Speaker 1: the summer, Altman traveled the world to talk about the
Speaker 1: promise and peril of AI. I caught up with him
Speaker 1: when he returned to San Francisco backstage at Bloomberg's annual
Speaker 1: Tech summit.
Speaker 2: So you've been traveling a time.
Speaker 7: Yeah, what's the like, eat, sleep, meditate, yoga tech routine.
Speaker 8: There was like no meditation or yoga on the entire trip,
Speaker 8: and almost an exercise that was tough.
Speaker 5: I slept fine.
Speaker 2: Actually was the goal more listening or explaining?
Speaker 8: The goal was more listening it ended up with more
Speaker 8: explaining than we expected. We ended up meeting like many
Speaker 8: many WARD leaders and talked about the sort of the
Speaker 8: need for global regulation, and that was like more explaining
Speaker 8: that listening was super valuable.
Speaker 5: Came back with like one hundred handwritten pages of notes.
Speaker 7: I heard that you do handwritten What happens to the
Speaker 7: handwritten notes?
Speaker 8: But in this case, like I distilled it into like
Speaker 8: here were the top fifty pieces of like feedback from
Speaker 8: our users and what we need to go off and do.
Speaker 8: But there's like a lot of things when you like
Speaker 8: get people in person, like face to face or over
Speaker 8: a drink or whatever, where people really will just like say,
Speaker 8: you know, here is like my very harsh feedback on
Speaker 8: what you're doing wrong.
Speaker 5: And I don't want to be different.
Speaker 2: You didn't go to China or Russia.
Speaker 5: I spoke remotely in China, but not Russia.
Speaker 2: Should we be worried about.
Speaker 7: Them and where they are on a what they I do?
Speaker 8: I'd love to know more precisely where they are. That
Speaker 8: would be hopeful. We have I think very imperfect information there.
Speaker 2: So how has chachipied you changed your own behavior?
Speaker 8: There's like a lot of like little ways and then
Speaker 8: kind of like one big thought. The little ways are,
Speaker 8: you know, like on this trip, for example, the translation
Speaker 8: was like a lifesaver.
Speaker 5: I also use it if.
Speaker 8: I'm trying to like write something which I write a
Speaker 8: lot to never publish, just like for my own thinking,
Speaker 8: and I find that I like write faster and can
Speaker 8: think more somehow, So it's like a.
Speaker 5: Great unsticking tool. But then the big ways I am
Speaker 5: I see the.
Speaker 8: Path towards like this just being like my super assistant
Speaker 8: for all of my cognitive work super assistant.
Speaker 7: You know, we've talked about relationships with chatbots. Did you
Speaker 7: see this as something that people could.
Speaker 2: Get emotionally attached to? And how do you feel about that?
Speaker 8: I think language models in general are something that people
Speaker 8: are getting emotionally attached to, and you know, I have
Speaker 8: like a complex set of thoughts about that. I personally
Speaker 8: find it strange. I don't want it for myself. I
Speaker 8: have a lot of concerns. I don't want to be
Speaker 8: like the kind of like people telling other people what
Speaker 8: they can do with tech. But it seems to me
Speaker 8: like something you need to be careful with.
Speaker 7: You've talked about how you are constantly in rooms full
Speaker 7: of people going holy, Yeah, what was the last holy moment?
Speaker 8: It was like very interesting to get out of the
Speaker 8: SF echo chamber or whatever you want to call it
Speaker 8: and see like the ways in which the holy concerns
Speaker 8: were the same everywhere, and also the ways they're different.
Speaker 8: So like everywhere people are like the way to change
Speaker 8: seems really fast. You know, what is this going to
Speaker 8: do to the economy?
Speaker 5: Good and bad? There's change, and change brings anxiety for people.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of anxiety out there. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of fear.
Speaker 7: The comparisons to nuclear, the comparisons to bioweapons are those
Speaker 7: fear is that over to matter.
Speaker 8: It is a lot of anxiety and fear, but I
Speaker 8: mean there's like way more excitement out there. I think,
Speaker 8: like with any very powerful technology synthetic, bio and nuclear,
Speaker 8: two of those, AI is a third. There are major downsides.
Speaker 8: We have to manage to be able to get the upsides.
Speaker 8: And with this technology, I expect the upsides to be
Speaker 8: far greater than anything we have seen, and the potential
Speaker 8: downside is also like super bad. So we do have
Speaker 8: to manage through those. But the quality of conversation about
Speaker 8: how to productively do that has gotten so much better,
Speaker 8: so fast. Like I went into the trip somewhat optimistic
Speaker 8: and I finished it super optimistically.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so is your bunker prepped and ready to go
Speaker 7: for the AI apocalypse?
Speaker 8: A bunker will not help anyone if there's an AI apocalypse.
Speaker 8: But I know that, Like, you know, journalists seem to
Speaker 8: really love that story.
Speaker 2: I do love that.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't overcorrect on like Boyhood's survival prep.
Speaker 5: Uh, co Scott, I like this stuff. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 5: going to help with AI.
Speaker 7: There's been talk about the kill switch, the big red button.
Speaker 5: I hope it's clear that's a joke.
Speaker 2: It's clear it's a joke. Could you actually turn it
Speaker 2: off if you wanted to?
Speaker 8: Yeah, sure, I mean we could like shut down our
Speaker 8: data centers or whatever.
Speaker 5: But I don't think that's what people mean by it.
Speaker 8: I think what we could do instead is all of
Speaker 8: the best practices we're starting to develop around how to
Speaker 8: build this safely, the safety tests, external audits, internal external
Speaker 8: red teams, lots more stuff. Like the way that it
Speaker 8: would be turned off in practice is not the dramatic,
Speaker 8: you know, gigantic switch from.
Speaker 5: The movies that cuts the power. Blah blah blah, it's
Speaker 5: that we have.
Speaker 8: Developed and our continue to develop these rigorous safety practices,
Speaker 8: and that's what the kill switch actually looks like.
Speaker 7: But it's not as theatric There is now a new
Speaker 7: competitive environment, for sure, and open aye is clearly the
Speaker 7: front runner.
Speaker 2: But who are you looking over your shoulder at?
Speaker 8: This is like not only a competitive environment, but I
Speaker 8: think this is probably the most competitive environment in tech
Speaker 8: right now.
Speaker 5: So we're sort of like looking at everybody.
Speaker 8: But I always, you know, given my background and startups,
Speaker 8: I directionally worry more about the people that we don't
Speaker 8: even know to look at yet, that'll that could come
Speaker 8: up with some really new idea we missed.
Speaker 2: How would you describe your relationship with Sacha in Nodella?
Speaker 2: How much control they have?
Speaker 1: You know, I've heard people say, you know, Microsoft's you're
Speaker 1: just going to buy open Ai.
Speaker 2: You're just making big tech bigger.
Speaker 8: Companies not for sale. I don't know how to be
Speaker 8: more clear than that we have a great relationship with them.
Speaker 8: I think it's a that these like big major partnerships
Speaker 8: between tech companies usually don't work.
Speaker 5: This is an example. If you're working really well, we're
Speaker 5: like super grateful for it.
Speaker 2: Have you talked to Elan at all behind the scenes. Sometimes,
Speaker 2: what do you guys talk about? I mean it's getting
Speaker 2: heeded in the public.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean we talk about like a super wide
Speaker 8: variety of important and totally trivial stuff.
Speaker 7: Why do you think he's so frustrated or kind of
Speaker 7: I mean, it's almost there's some attacking.
Speaker 5: Going on, and you should ask him.
Speaker 2: I would like to know. I'd like to better understand it.
Speaker 8: I don't think this is in the top like one
Speaker 8: hundred most important things happening related to AI right now.
Speaker 7: For what it's worth, is there any aspect of our
Speaker 7: lives that you think AI should never touch?
Speaker 8: My mom always used to say never, say never, never,
Speaker 8: say always, And I think that's like generally good advice.
Speaker 8: If I've made a prediction now, I'm sure it could
Speaker 8: end up being wrong in some sort of way. I
Speaker 8: think AI is going to touch most aspects of our lives,
Speaker 8: and then there will be some parts that stay surprisingly
Speaker 8: the same. But those kind of predictions are like humbling
Speaker 8: and very easy to get wrong.
Speaker 1: What's the percentage chance we get to the good future
Speaker 1: versus the bad future?
Speaker 5: Very high? But I don't know how to put a
Speaker 5: precise number on it.
Speaker 8: You know, when you hear these people say, like my
Speaker 8: probability of doing is three percent and minus twelve or
Speaker 8: mine sometimes it's like minus nine and minus thirteen.
Speaker 5: And I have this huge argument. I'm just not smart
Speaker 5: enough to give the numbers that precise.
Speaker 2: What do you think kid should be studying these days?
Speaker 8: Resilience, adaptability, a high rate of learning, creativity, certainly, familiarity
Speaker 8: with the tools.
Speaker 1: So it should kids still be learning how to code,
Speaker 1: because I've heard people say, don't need to learn.
Speaker 2: How to code anymore. Just Matt, just biology.
Speaker 8: Well, I'm biased because I like coding, but I think
Speaker 8: you should learn to code. I don't write code very
Speaker 8: much anymorld. I randomly did yesterday, But learning to code
Speaker 8: was great as a way to learn how to think.
Speaker 8: And I think coding will still be important in the future.
Speaker 8: It's just going to change a little bit or a lot.
Speaker 8: We have a new tool.
Speaker 2: What are we all going to do when we have
Speaker 2: nothing to do?
Speaker 8: I don't think we're ever going to have nothing to do.
Speaker 8: I think what we have to do may change, you know,
Speaker 8: like what you and I do for our jobs would
Speaker 8: not strike people from a few thousand years ago as
Speaker 8: real work. But we found new things to want and
Speaker 8: to do and ways to feel useful to other people
Speaker 8: and get fulfillment and create, and that will never stop.
Speaker 8: But probably I hope you and I look, you know,
Speaker 8: if we can look at the world a few hundred
Speaker 8: years in the future, be like, Wow, those people have
Speaker 8: it so good.
Speaker 5: I can't believe they call the stuff work. It's so true.
Speaker 2: So we're not going to be all just laying on
Speaker 2: the beach eating bond bonds.
Speaker 5: Some of us will and more power to people who
Speaker 5: want to do that.
Speaker 7: Do you think in your heart of hearts that the
Speaker 7: world is going to be more fair and more equity?
Speaker 4: I do?
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 8: I think that technology is fundamentally and equalizing force. It
Speaker 8: needs partnership from society and your institutions to get there.
Speaker 8: But if we can like my like my big picture,
Speaker 8: highest level like I'll zoom all the way out. View
Speaker 8: of the next decade is that the cost of intelligence
Speaker 8: and the cost of energy come way way down. And
Speaker 8: if those two things happen, it helps everyone, which is great.
Speaker 8: But I think it lifts up the floor a lot.
Speaker 2: So where do you want to take open AI next?
Speaker 8: We want to keep making better and better, more capable
Speaker 8: models and make them available more widely and less expensive.
Speaker 2: What about the field of AI in general.
Speaker 8: There's many people working on this, so we don't get
Speaker 8: to take the field anywhere.
Speaker 5: But we're pretty happy with our.
Speaker 8: Contribution, Like, we think we have nudged the field in
Speaker 8: a way that we're proud of. So we're working on
Speaker 8: new things too.
Speaker 2: What are the new things?
Speaker 5: They're still in progress?
Speaker 2: Is there room for startups in this totally?
Speaker 5: I mean, we were a startup not very long ago, but.
Speaker 2: You're almost already an incumbent.
Speaker 8: Of course, But when we started, like you could have
Speaker 8: asked the same question, In fact people did. In fact,
Speaker 8: I myself wondered, like, is it possible to take on Google?
Speaker 5: Indeed? Mind? Or have they already won?
Speaker 2: And they clearly have it?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like, I think there's a lot of It's always
Speaker 8: easy to kind of count yourself out as the startup,
Speaker 8: but startups keep doing your thing.
Speaker 2: Well, nobody's counting you out.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Circuit.
Speaker 1: I'm Emily Chang. You can follow me on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Instagram at Emily Chang TV. You can watch new episodes
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Speaker 1: host and executive producer. Our senior producer is Lauren Ellis.
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Lizzie Phillip. Our editor is Sebastian Escobar.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening