WEBVTT - Exploring the AI Revolution, Recycling Behaviors 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:06.880 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:11.160 This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.920 Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio. All right, well, we're joined now 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.840 by Craig Mundy, president of Munday and Associates and also 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:24.200 former Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer, on location on 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.920 Zoom in Washington, DC. He's here to discuss his new 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:33.080 book Genesis, Artificial Intelligence, Hope and the Human Spirit. And 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.240 this was co authored with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.280 and the late doctor Henry Kissinger. I want to get 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.400 into the book and the future of AI and humanity, 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.279 but I first want to ask Craig about just how 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.960 this partnership of the three authors came together and the 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.280 idea for writing this book. 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.600 Begod. I've known Henry for about well in twenty seven 0:00:55.680 --> 0:01:00.480 years now. Back in the earlier days at Microsoft, we 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:05.080 started to deal with a number of challenges on a 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.640 global basis, and I was introduced to Henry and we 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:13.600 became fast friends. That lasted another twenty five years, and 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.760 so we talked very regularly, almost twice a month. We'd 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:21.800 sit and talk for a while, and that evolved about 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.880 five or six years ago to a discussion more and 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:29.679 more around artificial intelligence. Eric Schmidt I've actually known since 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:34.480 he was originally joined Sun Microsystems, probably pushing toward forty 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:41.360 years now, and Eric and I encountered each other in 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:43.760 a number of ways and places. You know, we both 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.960 served President Obama as science advisors during. 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.040 His terms, and. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.400 We got a chance be a meeting that we attended 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.800 with Henry about six years ago to get Henry first 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.320 exposed to what was happening in artificial intelligen and he 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.360 was I guess ninety four at the time or something, 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.720 but he was completely taken by the issues that he 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.280 thought would be created by the emergence of a super intelligence. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.040 And because his background was in philosophy and history as 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:22.799 well as diplomacy, you know, he got more and more 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:27.079 interested and involved in that. That led to Eric and 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.640 Henry and Dan Huttonlocker from MIT wrote a book a 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.080 few years ago. We started to talk about the issues, 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.600 but it didn't really talk so much about possible solutions, 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.640 and the discussions I was having with Henry at the 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.560 time were targeted a little more at this question of 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.840 solutions than the very long term issues, and that led 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.360 to the three of us coming together and designing to 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.880 write a second book that would focus more on both 0:02:55.919 --> 0:03:01.440 the upsides and a strategy for how to manage the downside. 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.720 And that's Genesis. 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:10.639 Genesis, I guess the beginning of this new era that 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:15.200 that we face. What I find most interesting is the 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.720 with the involvement of Henry Kissinger. Then to me, it 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:23.320 means you can use artificial intelligence to do more things 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.920 than like make Siri better, but maybe solve the Middle 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:33.280 East conflict. And I wonder how AI would attempt to 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.480 do something like achieve world peace. How would you use 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:39.760 that tool to reach that goal? 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.520 Well, you know, you chose an interesting word. Tool. In 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.040 the book, we talk about our view that over the 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:52.640 long term, our involvement with an ultimately relationship with these 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.800 super intelligent machines goes through three phases. First phase, we're 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.760 sort of in now is is where we use it 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:03.080 as a tool, much like we have in all the 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:07.119 other inventions you know mankind has made. But we think 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:09.440 this is the first one where things have to move 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.240 beyond thinking of it as a tool that just amplifies 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:18.680 our own capabilities. We call the second stage coexistence, where 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.120 humans come to the realization that in essence these machines 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.160 are like a new intelligent species, and in fact, it 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:30.040 is probably super intelligent relative to humans. And while it's 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.839 not a biological species and the way we normally think 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.400 about it, it has sort of all those other properties. 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.440 So that puts us in a situation where we want 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:43.440 to think about how does this other intelligent species help us? 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:49.120 And that brings on many new issues philosophical, you know, 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:56.680 societal and technological, and so you know, there's a lot 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.599 of focus on that. Assuming we manage to get through 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.200 that in a positive way and humans come out the 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.640 other side, you know, in kind of a new environment, 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.279 then we end up in a stage we call co evolution, 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:16.280 where as has happened with biological species over the millennium 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.080 on Earth. You know, each of these things begins to 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.560 affect the other and you end up with some long 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.960 term symbiotic relationship. And while we can't really define what 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.360 that will be in advance, you know, we expect that 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.240 that's where this ultimately ends up. And so in that regard, 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:38.240 at each of these points in time, how AAI will 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.800 affect everything, including diplomacy and international relations as well as 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.160 science and discovery and politics. You know, we look at 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:50.560 some of those issues specifically in the book, but I 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.200 think in each of those three phases, the role that 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.560 the AI plays in moving toward resolution, you know, could 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:58.400 be quite different. 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.440 Description of the book said that AI might well solve 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.440 some of the greatest mysteries of our universe and elevate 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:11.200 the human spirit to unimaginable heights. I'm wondering what the book, 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.799 in this exploration of AI actually teaches the reader about 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:17.480 what it means to be human. 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.320 Well, one of the things that we point out in 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:27.280 the book is that humanity is ultimately going to have 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:33.080 to redefine the things that we think characterize humanity. We 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.280 call in a book for the need to redefine dignity. 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:42.120 Dignity as a base of giving people sort of purpose 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.800 and self respect we think is going to have to 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:51.560 be rethought once the AI begins to not only be 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.920 smarter than we are in virtually every field, but where 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.520 the emergence of it in conjunction with robotics and a 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:04.200 redisc rebution of work. In many ways, humans have always 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:06.679 had to work in order to be able to survive, 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.840 and in that environment, work becomes a big component of 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:16.760 how they view themselves and produce his dignity. And you know, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.000 as the as the AI and the and the evolving 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:26.960 technical environment changes the relationship between work and humans, you know, 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:29.880 we're going to have to rethink what these things are. 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:35.480 And so, you know, the book tries to point to 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:40.440 areas where we think the emergence of super intelligent machines 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:46.400 will benefit humans in science and discovery and things like 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:51.760 healthcare and education. But in the long run, it's really 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.080 also a call for humans to come together with some 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.520 urgency in order to be able to continue to redefine 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.920 and utilize our own agency during this transitional period. 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:11.480 Craig, then, do we continue to control this technology or 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.840 this super intelligence, because it sounds like in the final 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:20.720 phase it becomes near to omniscient and omnipotent. But I'm 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.080 not sure that there's any reason it would be omni benevolent. 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.480 Like you know, I always think of the three properties 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:30.640 of a Christian God, is it really going to want 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:31.239 to do good? 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.320 In the book, we talk about a new idea that's 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:42.480 emerging in some quarters academically and a little bit it's 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:44.960 been the focus of my own work in this area, 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.120 which is to try to think about how do we 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.720 engineer the AI in such a way that, in fact, 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:56.360 it does have a fundamental grounding in the same value 0:08:56.440 --> 0:09:01.320 systems that are important to humanity. Without that, you know, 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.080 you could say, and of course, many of the things 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.080 that have been written in the last couple of years 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:11.960 tend to be sensational. Sensationalized, you know, visit the risk 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.880 of the of the machine and the humans. And you know, 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.679 our own view is that if we want to contain 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.080 those risks, there's ultimately no way to do that other 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.160 than by building a trusted way in which the AI 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:30.479 itself is involved in policing its own actions. 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:31.080 Uh. 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.720 And you know, we've come to believe that that that's possible. 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.960 And so if we can build this kind of trusted 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:42.960 system that can monitor and and to some extent control 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.480 the use of all the other AIS collectively, then we 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.280 think that we can avoid many of the downsides and 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.559 get the full benefit of AI without suffering a substantial 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:04.320 risk that the AI becomes basically adversarial to humanity. 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:12.000 Fascinating, really fascinating stuff, Craig, and fantastic that you get 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:16.120 a chance to write with doctor Kissinger his last piece 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.640 of work, at least his last book. Craig Mundy there 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:24.360 on his book Genesis, Artificial Intelligence, Hope and the Human Spirit, 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.240 which he wrote with Henry Kissinger and Eric Schmidt. Thanks 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.120 very much for joining us. Let's talk right now about 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:36.719 the environment and waste Management or now it's known as 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.680 w M. We have Tara Hemmer right now out of Houston, 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.880 Texas joining us, senior vice president, chief Sustainability Officer at 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:51.040 wn w M. And as we you know, look at 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:58.439 the rising temperatures, the rising wind, the natural disasters. How 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:04.480 can WM or waste management help in this crisis? 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:08.480 Well, thank you so much for having me. And it 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:10.600 did take me a while to get used to the 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.120 to the name change to WM. But it really is 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.240 about the fact that WM. We handle so many different 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.120 material types each and every day, and a lot of 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.720 people don't know this about us. We are the largest 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:29.199 recycler in North America and we made significant investments announce 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.360 a one point four billion dollar investment in recycling infrastructure 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.319 across North America from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty six. 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:41.800 And this is about bringing access to communities. Recycling is 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:47.280 something that's so tangible and people can get their brains around. 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:51.880 But there are some myths around recycling that we really 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.280 want to work towards, so to speak, mythbusting. 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:01.400 Yeah, I have to admit, you know, I do recycle. However, 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.960 I also typically will like a meme that has to 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.400 do with the fact that, like, why am I recycling 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.320 my yogurt container when you know a CEO is taking 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:15.400 a private jet thirty times a year. But I still recycle. 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.640 But Tara, I'd love to hear kind of what your 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:23.800 recent recycling port kind of showed about consumer perceptions of 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.920 what recycle, what the impact of recycling actually is, because 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.280 sometimes when you put your yogurt container in the recycling bin, 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.520 it it really doesn't feel like you're doing much right. 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.600 That's right, well, and the most important. We did this 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:41.559 study because we wanted to understand what are consumers preferences 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.760 and what are they what's their understanding around recycling, And 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:50.880 what we found was really fascinating. We found that consumers 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.360 really are interested and want to know more about four 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.600 key areas. They're they're interested in learning more about recycling. 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.720 They want to be edged about what happens to their materials. 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:08.280 They need more access to recycle. Some communities don't even 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.079 have recycling as a service. And that's something that's incredibly important. 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.520 And then what we also found is that consumer brands, 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.400 there's a lot of brand pull from millennials. And so 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.520 I'm so glad you brought up the example of yogurt containers, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.520 because when I meet people in my community or my neighborhoods, 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.000 a lot of people are really interested in can I 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.640 recycle my yogurt container? And then what happens to it 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.280 once it gets recycled. The thing is we need to 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.520 bring to life what happens to the materials that you 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.240 put in the bin a yogurt container. In our world, 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.360 it gets turned into paint cans, as an example, or 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.520 your water bottle that you might put in your recycling bin, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.600 it could get turned into another water bottle. It could 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.920 get turned into a parel that you wear each and 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.120 every day. In our case, it gets turned into our employees' uniforms. 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:02.000 There's no greater circularity story than that. And in other instances, 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.760 it gets turned into carpet that goes into homes. So 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.120 it's important to know that if you are putting the 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:13.240 right recycling types in your bin, it does get turned 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.200 into other products, and the vast majority of it stays 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.080 in the United States. 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.800 Right, although there are a lot of caveats there like 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.400 so By the way, this is the second time we've 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:26.760 talked about yogurt on today's show. I think it's funny 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.520 because there's so many skews, right. If you go to 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.320 a grocery store, there's nothing they have more different kinds 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:37.280 of than yogurt. I typically eat Siggi's yogurt, and when 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:39.880 I'm done with it, I'm always wondering, do I have 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.760 to rinse the yogurt out of it before I put recycling? 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.040 Do I need to rip off the paper label and 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.760 put that in the paper recycling bin before I put 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.960 my yogurt in the plastic recycling bin. And then when 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.480 that all goes into the bins, what are the chances 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.680 that the garbage men are actually going to take that 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.120 stuff to recycling or are they all going to throw it, 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:03.080 as I suspect, in the same giant bin that they 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.400 throw all of the other garbage into, you know, or 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:08.280 sell it to a company that just ships it off 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.880 to Indonesia and floats it in the ocean outside of 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.040 Jakarta rather than recycling it. I think the transparency problem 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.720 is a really big one. Tara, how do you overcome that? 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.080 Well, First and foremost, I want to underscore at WM, 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:27.960 we take recycling extremely seriously. It's one of our more 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.080 significant business lines. And when we collect your materials at 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.200 the curb, it goes to a WM recycling facility or 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.520 a recycling facility that we're vetting, and we have very 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.600 sophisticated technology. I think this is something that people don't 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:48.080 really understand. When you throw your yogurt container, your water bottle, 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.800 your hardboard boxes from all the e commerce shopping that 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.040 we're doing, and you put it in one bin, single stream. 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.880 We have advanced technology that sorts it out, so pulls 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.200 out that cardbore container from all of the other things 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.960 that it's commingled with, and we send it in a 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.320 lot of instances to domestic markets and that cardboard box 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.480 might get turned into a pizza box that shows up 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:17.240 in your local neighborhood. And regarding plastics, you know, I've 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.760 heard this from others too, like do I rinse my 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:24.280 material I've heard of people putting their peanut butter jars 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:25.200 through the dishwasher. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:26.240 Don't do that. 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.760 From an environmental perspective, But also we want to have 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:36.600 these materials mostly clean, and so if you can just 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.040 you know, give it a quick rinse, that's great. But 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.800 when it ends up at our facilities, we're still able 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.360 to pick it out, and we work really hard to 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.600 build markets for these materials. That's a big part of 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:51.800 what we do. And I think the other reason why 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.720 we did the study is there is a recognition that 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.080 people are confused and they want to better understand where 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.360 if I'm doing all this work, where do my materials go. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.680 Tara, We're gonna have to Sorry, we're going to running 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:06.280 upgainst the clock, but we're gonna have to have you 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.640 come back because this really is fascinating stuff and interesting 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.520 to hear what WM it does and how dedicated you are. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.680 Tarah Hammer there, senior vice president, chief sustainability Officer at WM. 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:18.760 This is Bloomberg