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Speaker 1: Today's episode of What Future with Joshua Topolski is a

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Speaker 1: re release. It's a really interesting listen. We will be

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Speaker 1: back next week with an all new episode.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm

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Speaker 2: your host, Joshua Topolski. Now, I don't know if you

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Speaker 2: have been following any of this stuff with this new

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Speaker 2: artificial intelligence machine learning driven AI driven bots, So there's

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Speaker 2: several bots that do this. One has recently become widely

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Speaker 2: available to the public. It's a bot called mid Journey.

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Speaker 2: From a user perspective, From a person's perspective, what you

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Speaker 2: can do is you can sit down and type something

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Speaker 2: and it will generate based on all of the images

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Speaker 2: it's ever looked at, which are billions of images on

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Speaker 2: the Internet and wherever else. Databases they feed it and

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Speaker 2: stuff like that. It will generate what it thinks you

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Speaker 2: want from a prompt from a sentence. You actually use

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Speaker 2: it through Discord, which is like kind of a chat

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Speaker 2: you know network, which was popularized by gamers. But Discord

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Speaker 2: you can basically go and talk to the discord bought

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Speaker 2: from mid Journey, and you can say, for instance, Dracula

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Speaker 2: explaining his vamporism, to a crowd of onlookers, and it

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Speaker 2: will generate four different images that it thinks capture your idea,

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Speaker 2: and they're insanely accurate. They look like somebody painted a

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Speaker 2: picture of something that you wanted. It is essentially like

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Speaker 2: the closest thing to being able to visualize a dream.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that I've ever had my mind more

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Speaker 2: blown by anything a computer has ever done than this

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Speaker 2: piece of software. I mean, it is hard to articulate

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Speaker 2: what it feels like when you write a sentence of

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Speaker 2: something that seems completely impossible and then see a pretty

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Speaker 2: good representation of it in a matter of like thirty seconds,

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Speaker 2: forty five seconds, maybe a minute, to see your first

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Speaker 2: four versions of something. Let's just say you're not an artist,

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Speaker 2: You're not a designer. You're not going to make your

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Speaker 2: living off of doing paintings for magazines or whatever. You're

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Speaker 2: just a person from a pure, like thrill level as

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Speaker 2: a person, I think this is fucking amazing. It is

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Speaker 2: like the most fascinating and most amazing thing I've almost

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Speaker 2: maybe I've ever done on a computer. And I've done

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Speaker 2: a lot of stuff on the computer, you know what

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Speaker 2: I mean, But this is like trippy I mean it's

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Speaker 2: fucking insane. It's like, like I said, it's sort of

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Speaker 2: like as close as you might get to you know,

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Speaker 2: you had a dream, and you can then see the dream.

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Speaker 2: I would also say, what's interesting is that it is

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Speaker 2: like a computer dreaming. I mean, what it is is

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Speaker 2: you giving This is like what I consider to be

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Speaker 2: fairly abstry input to a computer and the computer deciding

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Speaker 2: making all of these really creative decisions about what that

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Speaker 2: thing should look like. Anyhow, I'm not an artist. I'm

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Speaker 2: not a painter. I have been working with mid Journey

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Speaker 2: to create art for this podcast, and you can see

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Speaker 2: some of the prompts for these, some of the ones

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Speaker 2: that I did science fiction paperback book cover about society

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Speaker 2: in the future. One of them is a phrase from

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Speaker 2: Blade Runner attack chips on fire off the shoulder of Oryon,

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Speaker 2: which is Rucker. Howard has this monologue at the end

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Speaker 2: of Blade Runner, and that's one of the things he says,

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Speaker 2: and it created imagery based on that sentence, Dracula explaining

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Speaker 2: his vamporism to a crowd of onlookers. You can see

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Speaker 2: several variations. I mean, they are fucking beautiful pieces of art.

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Speaker 2: In my opinion, like legitimately beautiful pieces of art. There

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Speaker 2: is some art in figuring out how to get this

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Speaker 2: thing to do what you want, or to at least

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Speaker 2: create a result. Is that is pleasing? Now? Anyhow, what's

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Speaker 2: interesting about this? There's many interesting things about it, and

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Speaker 2: like I'll just go down the list of some of

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Speaker 2: the ones that I'm thinking about. First off, there's obviously

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Speaker 2: this question about art, like what is art and is

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Speaker 2: this art? And what kind of art is it? Meaning

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Speaker 2: As a guy who who's run a lot of newsrooms

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Speaker 2: and a lot of publications, I could see this is

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Speaker 2: very functionally important in like an organization that needs original

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Speaker 2: art for things, but maybe it doesn't have the budget

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Speaker 2: or the time to generate original art for everything they'd

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Speaker 2: like to generate original art for right, So there's an

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Speaker 2: implication there, like for me that I'm like, oh, that's

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Speaker 2: really interesting, Right, that's really exciting. I follow a bunch

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Speaker 2: of designers and artists on Instagram and they've been talking

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Speaker 2: about this for a while. I mean, this opens up

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Speaker 2: an enormous amount of serious questions, like, for instance, the

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Speaker 2: bots are obviously taking content and material and analyzing it

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Speaker 2: and learning from it, and in some cases, replicating it

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Speaker 2: in some way from a real artists right from historic

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Speaker 2: you know, pieces of art up to modern pieces of art.

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Speaker 2: As far as I know, in essence, these ais can

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Speaker 2: go and look at and then learn from. But there's

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Speaker 2: this little bit of controversy, or not a little bit,

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Speaker 2: maybe a lot from some artists who say this is

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Speaker 2: you know, it's theft of our work. You know, they're

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Speaker 2: using things we've created without any license to do so

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Speaker 2: and creating new works based on it. That argument, to

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Speaker 2: me is a little bit like every artist uses somebody

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Speaker 2: else's work to create what they do. I mean, as

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Speaker 2: we know, remixing in music has become one of the

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Speaker 2: baseline ways you make music now, no pun intended on baseline.

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Speaker 2: So the idea of like sampling somebody else's art to

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Speaker 2: create something new is not new. I think what's sort

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Speaker 2: of insane and threatening on a bunch of different levels

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Speaker 2: is that this is creating real art, really interesting pieces

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Speaker 2: of art and imagery that have real applications, whether it's

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Speaker 2: hanging in a gallery or using for an illustration in

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Speaker 2: a magazine or whatever, and it is just removing a

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Speaker 2: person completely. Basically, this image that I created for the

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Speaker 2: podcast is a perfect example, I could sit with a

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Speaker 2: designer and tell them about what I wanted and show

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Speaker 2: them examples can you make something like this, and we

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Speaker 2: could work through it over and over again until we

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Speaker 2: got to something that fell right. The idea that I

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Speaker 2: could just say it and it could be like, this

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Speaker 2: could be it. This could be the art for the show.

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Speaker 2: And that's one job that a artist is not going

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Speaker 2: to get now, like for sure, right, there's an implication

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Speaker 2: for people who work in these fields that is way

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Speaker 2: different than what we're talking about. Like I was like,

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Speaker 2: at a pure human level, this is thrilling, but on

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Speaker 2: the flip side of that, there's entire industries that potentially

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Speaker 2: are wiped out by this. What does this open up,

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Speaker 2: I think is a question that I don't know the

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Speaker 2: answer to, which is, in five or ten years, this

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Speaker 2: is going to be so much more capable to create

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Speaker 2: things like this, capable to a point where I think

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Speaker 2: it's likely in the next five to ten years you

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Speaker 2: can simply tell it to do something whatever it is,

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Speaker 2: and it will create a perfectly photorealistic version of it.

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Speaker 2: I mean, and there are versions of this where you

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Speaker 2: can say, you know, show me this thing and show

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Speaker 2: it to me in these different styles, and it'll show

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Speaker 2: you an image in the style of this painter, or

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Speaker 2: or like it was a photo taken from this era,

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Speaker 2: or like it was you know, shot on a certain

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Speaker 2: kind of film. What that means going forward is almost

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Speaker 2: like kind of frightening. Like people are like talked a

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Speaker 2: lot about deep fakes, you know, and they're like, oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: like they're going to fake a voice, or they're going

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Speaker 2: to fake a person's face or whatever. Like this is

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Speaker 2: essentially like we're getting to the point where you can

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Speaker 2: just fake any situation. You can just create visually any

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Speaker 2: situation you can think of. And I think the logical

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Speaker 2: thing is that eventually, pretty soon, I would imagine it'll

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Speaker 2: be able to do this with video, right, and I

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Speaker 2: think with moving images sound is not too far behind it.

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Speaker 2: You start to think of how this could be applied

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Speaker 2: to all sorts of other things. I mean, presumably, if

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Speaker 2: it can do this with art, with visual art, I

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Speaker 2: think it can do it with other forms of art. Right.

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Speaker 2: Will we discover when it's like you could have any

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Speaker 2: art available to you, any type of content available to you,

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Speaker 2: perhaps that like what you want is somebody else's brain

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Speaker 2: in mind, Right, like I want to like understand or

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Speaker 2: see something or hear something from somebody else's brain, but

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Speaker 2: I don't know what it's like if if the other

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Speaker 2: brain can just create any of those things that I

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Speaker 2: would be intrigued by, Like this art is a great example. Clearly,

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Speaker 2: this non brain entity can create things that surprise and

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Speaker 2: delight me, that feel as authentic and original as any

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Speaker 2: art that I've looked at. It's obvious that the systems

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Speaker 2: that are creating this are very advanced, and they are

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Speaker 2: only going to get better. They're not going to get worse.

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Speaker 2: There is no going back to a state where this

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Speaker 2: is not possible. And so when you think about what

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Speaker 2: that looks like down the road, like maybe not everybody

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Speaker 2: feels this way, but I can kind of like in

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Speaker 2: the middle of my brain, I get this like very

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Speaker 2: upsetting feeling when I think about what space actually is,

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Speaker 2: which is like this endless nothing and actually nothing and

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Speaker 2: what is that like? It's very upsetting to think about

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Speaker 2: to me. When I think about like the future of

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Speaker 2: this stuff, it's sort of a similar kind of weight

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Speaker 2: in the middle of my brain, which is like where

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Speaker 2: does this go? Like it feels like all of real

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Speaker 2: is almost called into question by the technology, and maybe

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Speaker 2: I'm overstating it, maybe I sound crazy. I'm not saying

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Speaker 2: the computer sension, or it's alive, or it's got a

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Speaker 2: soul now or anything. But there's something in between the

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Speaker 2: lines of all this where it's just sort of like

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Speaker 2: it leaps beyond even my understanding of what is happening,

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Speaker 2: Like it leaps to a place that's almost like, I

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Speaker 2: don't want to say spiritual, but it leaps to a

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Speaker 2: kind of almost religious place where it's like, how can

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Speaker 2: this be? You kind of feel like when you do it,

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Speaker 2: how can this be?

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Speaker 3: Like?

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Speaker 2: How is it possible? My guest today is David Holds,

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Speaker 2: the founder and CEO of mid Journey. David, thank you

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Speaker 2: for being here.

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Speaker 4: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: Just before this, I said, can I say CEO? And

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Speaker 2: you didn't want me to, but I've done it anyway.

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Speaker 2: We're all going to have to live with the repercussions.

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Speaker 4: I no, I've been exposed.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Let's say you and I met at a party.

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Speaker 2: Let's pretend we're at a cool party. You don't know

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Speaker 2: where I'm coming from, and I'm like, what do you do?

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Speaker 2: And you say, I'm the founder CEO of mid Journey

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Speaker 2: and I go, what's that? How would you describe it

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Speaker 2: to somebody just randomly at a party.

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Speaker 4: I try not to. I'm pretty low key, but.

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Speaker 2: If they ask, they're like, what does mid Journey do?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I I never really wanted a company. I just

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Speaker 3: kind of wanted a home, and so like mid Journey

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Speaker 3: is sort of meant to be like my new home

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Speaker 3: for the next ten years, to work on a lot

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Speaker 3: of cool projects that I care about, with with cool people,

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Speaker 3: and that hopefully are are good for everybody else too.

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Speaker 3: I know we have sort of themes that I want

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Speaker 3: to work on, but I had to put in three words.

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Speaker 3: It's like reflection, imagination, and coordination. Like in order to

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Speaker 3: flourish as a civilization, we're gonna have to like make

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Speaker 3: a lot of new things. And making new things involves

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Speaker 3: those three words. Wow, and we need a lot more

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Speaker 3: around them, like infrastructure, new fundamental forms of infrastructure really

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Speaker 3: around each of them. We were actually originally working more

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Speaker 3: on the reflections and coordination tools. We were doing some

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Speaker 3: imagination stuff, but then there were certain breakthroughs on the

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Speaker 3: AI side that were happening. It was about like a

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Speaker 3: year and a half ago. Now it looks like everything's

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Speaker 3: blowing up. But like a year and a half ago

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Speaker 3: in San Francisco, we all went to the same Christmas

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Speaker 3: parties and stuff. All the AI people are kind of

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Speaker 3: out in here, and we were kind of all together,

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Speaker 3: and I'm like, these diffusion models, it seems different than

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Speaker 3: the other stuff.

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Speaker 4: And they're like, yeah, no, this is different, and well,

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Speaker 4: what are you gonna do?

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Speaker 2: What are you gonna do?

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Speaker 3: We're all kind of just talking, and I'm eventually like,

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Speaker 3: I think there's going to be a human side of this,

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Speaker 3: that it's not just about making pictures, but that there's

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Speaker 3: a sort of a back and forth. There's like a

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Speaker 3: lot more to this that's gonna be hard to figure

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Speaker 3: out from just optimizing a single number and up computer program. Right.

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Speaker 4: There may be some taste involved, and no one knows

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Speaker 4: what that is. And I'm like, i think there's something

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Speaker 4: I have to contribute to, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Can you imagine? Though I'm a guy you just met

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Speaker 2: at a party. I've got no context whatsoever about mid

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Speaker 2: jourdy and you just told me that, which, all, by

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Speaker 2: the way, all very interesting. I have many questions related

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Speaker 2: to what you just said. Yeah, I had dumb it

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Speaker 2: down a little bit only because maybe not every single

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Speaker 2: person will know, but ah, mid Journey is known right now.

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Speaker 2: The company has risen to kind of a place in

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Speaker 2: the spotlight because it is what I think we're all

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Speaker 2: sort of talking about now, is like an AI art

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Speaker 2: tool or a tool to create art based on artificial

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Speaker 2: intelligence and machine learning and all of these sort of

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Speaker 2: other very complex technologies that are kind of fusing together

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Speaker 2: to make something that is relatively new. So I think

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Speaker 2: most people would say, you've built a tool that can

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Speaker 2: take human language tax like basic like English prompts or whatever.

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Speaker 2: Maybe you do in different languages, I don't know, and

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Speaker 2: convert a prompt like a description of something into a

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Speaker 2: piece of art that is created basically wholly by a machine.

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Speaker 2: Is that correct?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I try to avoid like the word art almost

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Speaker 3: to be honest, okay, because I think that it's like

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Speaker 3: not really about art. It's about imagination and sometimes people

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Speaker 3: use their imaginations for art, but usually not right, And

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Speaker 3: so I usually think of it as we're trying to

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Speaker 3: create these machine augment imaginative powers. Sometimes I almost call

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Speaker 3: it like a vehicle, right, you know, to really like

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Speaker 3: to ask like what are we doing? Like is it

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Speaker 3: like the invention of photography and how it changed painting, right,

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Speaker 3: And I tend to say no, it's much more like

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Speaker 3: the invention of the combustion engine and the car. And

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Speaker 3: like when we invented cars, they're faster than us, but

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Speaker 3: we didn't chop our legs off.

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Speaker 4: We don't have to really move somewhere.

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Speaker 3: You move through vehicles, So it's kind of like a

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Speaker 3: vehicle for a magines If you really have to go somewhere,

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Speaker 3: you're going to unit these vehicles like jets and boath

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Speaker 3: and cars.

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Speaker 4: We never have a little robot as like our icon.

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Speaker 3: It's like a sailboat, right, you know, very much trying

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Speaker 3: to kind of help people explore and imagine these like

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Speaker 3: seeds of like esthetic possibilities.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's interesting that there's a little bit of

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Speaker 2: like a defensive stance you have to take now because

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Speaker 2: the art aspect of it gets under the skin of

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Speaker 2: a certain part of the audience that's like, wait a second,

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Speaker 2: you know, what is this thing doing? What does it mean?

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Speaker 2: What does it mean for all these different industries. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of people feel and maybe you

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Speaker 2: guys have had to play some a new round of

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Speaker 2: defense because of it. That this is an engineer to

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Speaker 2: kind of like up end industries, right, But you're saying

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Speaker 2: you don't really view it that.

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Speaker 3: Way, No, And that to me is actually very uninteresting.

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Speaker 3: Like the idea of like making fake art is really uninteresting,

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Speaker 3: like who cares? Or making fake photos it's really like

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Speaker 3: to me is not like I think, what's interesting is

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Speaker 3: making stuff that never could have existed before. I don't

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Speaker 3: like it when somebody makes a deep fake photo of

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Speaker 3: the dog, we make it really ready to do that.

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Speaker 4: Other ones do that well.

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Speaker 3: To me, the most interesting images are the ones that

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Speaker 3: don't look like anything we've ever seen before. They don't

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Speaker 3: look human, they don't look like the AI made. They

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Speaker 3: look like something new, and all we know is that

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Speaker 3: it's this new thing, it's this new frontier.

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Speaker 2: Right. I should tell you that the art for this podcast,

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Speaker 2: as of right now, and I don't think it's going

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Speaker 2: to change, is generated by mid Journey Cool, and it

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Speaker 2: ended up producing results that I think are like at

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Speaker 2: once very familiar to me, like in terms of stylistically,

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Speaker 2: there's something very familiar to me about it, but there's

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Speaker 2: also something about it that is like totally original, I

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Speaker 2: think to your point, now, I'll tell you this, like,

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Speaker 2: I'll give you my stance a little bit, because one

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Speaker 2: of the reasons I wanted to talk to you, one

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Speaker 2: of the reasons I want to talk about this at

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Speaker 2: all is, as you know, I'm a huge nerd and

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Speaker 2: I've spent my entire life like being, you know, sort

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Speaker 2: of mesmerized and interested in emerging technology in all sorts

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Speaker 2: of different forms. And when I started using mid Journey,

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Speaker 2: mid Journey's producing something that to me feels I'll try

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Speaker 2: to avoid using the term arte, it feels like it's

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Speaker 2: creating something very original. I could say, like, Okay, I

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Speaker 2: know where some of this stuff is coming from, Like

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Speaker 2: I can kind of understand, like there's certain styles that

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Speaker 2: are present, or if you give it a prompt to

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Speaker 2: get a certain style, you can get that. But to me,

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Speaker 2: it was like, and I still feel this having processed

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Speaker 2: it now for you know, weeks and months, maybe the

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Speaker 2: most amazing thing that I've ever seen a machine do.

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Speaker 2: I totally understand the idea that you're not trying to

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Speaker 2: build a tool that is like a new photoshop, although

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Speaker 2: I think or applications that are obvious that are in

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Speaker 2: that realm. When I first asked about what it was

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Speaker 2: you use three words. What were the three words that

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Speaker 2: you used.

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Speaker 4: Was reflection, imagination, and coordination.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so coordination and reflection. I want to talk about

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Speaker 2: like what that means because I understand the imagination part,

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Speaker 2: and I think I understand how you are thinking about

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Speaker 2: like what mid Journey does now in that department. But

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Speaker 2: tell me about like those roots of reflection and coordination,

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Speaker 2: Like what was this before it was? What it is?

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Speaker 3: We were working on a lot of things trying to

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Speaker 3: like understand human minds, like individually to help people reflect

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Speaker 3: and then also to kind of help people come together

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Speaker 3: and like work on things better. And so we were

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Speaker 3: doing a lot of like quantitative psychology and like structured

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Speaker 3: thinking to kind of like create like boost up of

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Speaker 3: a hive mind as fast as.

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Speaker 4: You can kind of a future is going to say

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Speaker 4: lots of weird things.

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Speaker 2: No, that's good. Are you saying that? Like the roots

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Speaker 2: of this are kind of like can we get this

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Speaker 2: thing to think on a collective level for us to

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Speaker 2: like solve problems? Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I think there's two areas.

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Speaker 3: There's both like how do you help somebody think about

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Speaker 3: like who they are, what they want and just kind

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Speaker 3: of like deal with their things. Uh. And then there's

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Speaker 3: also like how do you help them find like the

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Speaker 3: right people anything big nets other people, So how do

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Speaker 3: you kind of find the people?

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Speaker 4: And I don't know.

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Speaker 3: When I was like twenty, I would say, you have

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Speaker 3: to have your goals and then you align people who

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Speaker 3: share the goals.

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Speaker 4: And then I've done that.

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Speaker 3: And it turns out that the second the goals change,

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Speaker 3: the groups blow apart because like it's about values or something.

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Speaker 3: And then if you a lot of people on values

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Speaker 3: and then over like five or ten years, it blows

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Speaker 3: apart again because it turns out that our values like

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Speaker 3: change in our lives, our experience change, right, And so

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Speaker 3: then maybe this idea is like we need some higher

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Speaker 3: than values, and maybe it's aesthetics. It's like not about

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Speaker 3: what's like right or wrong or what's important on importance.

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Speaker 3: It's like really deep down, it's about like what we

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Speaker 3: feel is beautiful and what we feel is ugly that

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Speaker 3: like really leads to the things that we value, the things.

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Speaker 4: That we actually tried to build.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting.

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Speaker 3: And so there's this idea of like maybe aesthetics themselves

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Speaker 3: are like some of the highest things, and maybe aesthetics

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Speaker 3: can be like a foundational layer of like a social

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Speaker 3: world in a way that like is beyond where it is,

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Speaker 3: because right now it's like the Internet, what is it?

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Speaker 4: It's about?

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Speaker 3: Like Facebook, it's like who's your mom and who went

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Speaker 3: to school with? And then like on Twitter, it's like

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Speaker 3: almost like like you say one thing a day that

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Speaker 3: pisses people off and then half of them will follow you, right,

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Speaker 3: And like those are both shitty foundations for like a

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Speaker 3: better social world. I would never want to build a

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Speaker 3: team that way, so that there's something really interesting on

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Speaker 3: like mid journey where people come together and they're like, man,

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Speaker 3: you love like Egyptian space pyramids too, That's like me,

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Speaker 3: And then like you have nothing else in common, but

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Speaker 3: you both love Egyptian space pyramids and it actually like

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Speaker 3: means something really deep, right. I think that like aesthetics

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Speaker 3: have the potential to be a foundation of a better

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Speaker 3: social and cordant player in a way that's like really

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Speaker 3: hard to understand, but that is actually like really interesting.

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Speaker 2: I mean that's a fascinating and frankly I have so

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Speaker 2: many questions around just the basic concept there, but like

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Speaker 2: I would agree with you that aesthetics do tend to

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Speaker 2: bring people together. I mean, but aesthetics conceptually, the idea of,

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Speaker 2: you know, having a taste or a preference for something,

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Speaker 2: there's a limit I would imagine too, people who identify

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Speaker 2: around an aesthetic position. Meaning my mother, who's a wonderful,

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Speaker 2: wonderful and extremely insane person. She could talk about things

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Speaker 2: she's visually finds beautiful or whatever, but I would not

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Speaker 2: say it's like a central part of her personality or

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Speaker 2: something that she has an enormous amount of interest in. Right.

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Speaker 2: The thing about Facebook is that a raw opinion or

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Speaker 2: sharing something like oh, I found this article interesting or

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00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:28,640
Speaker 2: whatever is very straightforward in the sense of we all

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Speaker 2: know what an idea is or an interesting article or

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Speaker 2: an opinion. But I don't know that everybody thinks on

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Speaker 2: an aesthetic level. Maybe I'm not giving everybody enough credit.

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Speaker 2: It's possible. I think you're right.

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Speaker 3: People don't think about it, but it's there, right, Like

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Speaker 3: I tried this, I'd like, what are your aesthetics that

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Speaker 3: lead to your values, that lead to your goals? Like

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Speaker 3: you can ask the question and almost nobody can answer it. Right,

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Speaker 3: It's a really hard question, But all of a sudden

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Speaker 3: you give them something like mid journey and it's like

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Speaker 3: you can make a picture of anything, what do you want,

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Speaker 3: and like everything just spills out and then they go

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Speaker 3: through this whole like heroes and mid journey and like

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Speaker 3: the process of looking through that journey, like you like

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Speaker 3: it's all there and it's very clear, like a lot

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Speaker 3: of stuff comes out.

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Speaker 2: Actually, But if I'm like a and I'm gonna give

431
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Speaker 2: you like a really extreme example, and so forgive me

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Speaker 2: if this feels like a like a a gotcha or whatever.

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Speaker 2: But if I'm like a neo Nazi, for instance, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I might love Star Wars. Let's say, although I always

435
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Speaker 2: find it fascinating when like people who are really into fascism,

436
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:21,439
Speaker 2: like are like I like Star Wars, I'm into the

437
00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:24,160
Speaker 2: Rebels or whatever. I'm like, you know, it's but okay,

438
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:26,119
Speaker 2: let's say I like Star Wars. You like Star Wars,

439
00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:27,879
Speaker 2: but like one of us is a white supremacist and

440
00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:31,480
Speaker 2: one of us isn't. We may share some aesthetic interests, right,

441
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:34,560
Speaker 2: or we may both love a certain artist, right, you know,

442
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:37,720
Speaker 2: we're Lichtenstein fans or whatever. But like, at the end

443
00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:39,320
Speaker 2: of the day, deep down, I don't know that that

444
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:43,920
Speaker 2: aesthetic preference has any deeper resonance on who we are.

445
00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:45,800
Speaker 2: There's a limit, right, well, so.

446
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:48,639
Speaker 3: Like for example, like you know, you're a rebel obviously,

447
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:51,359
Speaker 3: and then like a Nazi nowadays is also rebel in

448
00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:54,680
Speaker 3: their own way, so you do have something in common. Yeah,

449
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:57,000
Speaker 3: but like, but there's probably also other things. I mean,

450
00:20:57,040 --> 00:20:59,840
Speaker 3: that's that is a leap, I would say. I mean,

451
00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:02,520
Speaker 3: I get what you're saying. They're definitely going against the grain, right,

452
00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:04,800
Speaker 3: I got it. Yeah, I get the grain. Yeah, I know,

453
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:06,600
Speaker 3: I mean they were Yeah, definitely a lot of us

454
00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:10,000
Speaker 3: are rebels, and they're types of rebels, but we are rebels.

455
00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:13,000
Speaker 3: But now, like I think there are other things too, right,

456
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:15,399
Speaker 3: So you don't want to just lock on rebels. You

457
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:17,080
Speaker 3: want to have something it's like a little bit broader

458
00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:19,239
Speaker 3: and more interesting. It's the question is after you make

459
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:20,800
Speaker 3: a bunch of picture of rebels, what's the next thing

460
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 3: you do?

461
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:24,439
Speaker 4: You know, and then what's that's? What's that all come together?

462
00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 2: You know? I mean, now we're like very far afield

463
00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:28,480
Speaker 2: from Like I've got a mid journey bought that I

464
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:30,119
Speaker 2: can talk to and it can make images for me.

465
00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 2: I mean, how would you describe it? You describe it

466
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:32,400
Speaker 2: as ai?

467
00:21:33,119 --> 00:21:35,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it is it is ai. I don't like.

468
00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:38,000
Speaker 3: I kind of avoid the words ai and art actually

469
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,000
Speaker 3: both together. Weirdly, problem with words like AI is that

470
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:43,280
Speaker 3: people give it a lot of agency and like will

471
00:21:43,320 --> 00:21:45,520
Speaker 3: and purpose and meaning right and so where it's like

472
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:47,560
Speaker 3: this thing it doesn't have a story or a narrative

473
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:48,920
Speaker 3: or like any will.

474
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:51,119
Speaker 2: Right, ascension doesn't have a soul.

475
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:54,280
Speaker 4: It does learn actually from lots of people, and it

476
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:56,720
Speaker 4: changes and there's a co evolution. It's almost like mid

477
00:21:56,760 --> 00:21:59,439
Speaker 4: Journey is a flower and then the users are bees,

478
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 4: and like the flower is trying to be beautiful for

479
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 4: the bees, but the bees pick which flowers are the

480
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 4: ones that get to survive, and so like there's this

481
00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:08,639
Speaker 4: coevolution between the flowers and the bees.

482
00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:10,680
Speaker 3: Like there's not a lot of will. There is some will,

483
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:13,120
Speaker 3: there's a will to be beautiful, and then there's only

484
00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:15,560
Speaker 3: weird about flowers being beautiful because we find them beautiful too.

485
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 3: It's like, what does that mean? It's because they're not

486
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:19,919
Speaker 3: really for us specifically. It's like why do both us

487
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:21,960
Speaker 3: and the bees find something beautiful? Like it's sort of

488
00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 3: speaking some weird objective thing.

489
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:26,359
Speaker 2: No, And I can understand that from a philosophical level.

490
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 2: I mean, like, what is it doing.

491
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:29,679
Speaker 3: It's a program, Yeah, it's a program. It's a program

492
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,359
Speaker 3: with a lot of models in it. There's a model

493
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 3: that models language, and there's something that models the connection

494
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 3: between language and images. There's other thing that tries to

495
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:39,639
Speaker 3: model what images look like.

496
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:40,120
Speaker 2: Right.

497
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:43,639
Speaker 3: There's actually also models that try to understand like beauty,

498
00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:46,159
Speaker 3: like what is beautiful actually? And then there's other models

499
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:50,080
Speaker 3: that try to understand like trade offs between like diversity versus,

500
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:52,480
Speaker 3: creativity versus like how literal should you be?

501
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:54,439
Speaker 4: How metaphorical should you be? How do you read things?

502
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:56,879
Speaker 4: And so it's kind of a it's.

503
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 3: Like a structure and there's a lot of like ducta

504
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 3: and you know, it's it's weird because like people will

505
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,199
Speaker 3: be like is it alive? Like, well, how is it

506
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,600
Speaker 3: understand thing? If I say something like sadness or happiness?

507
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:10,080
Speaker 3: How is it able to make an image of an

508
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 3: emotion that it's never had? Like they go ask these

509
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:13,440
Speaker 3: questions like what is this like that's it doesn't not

510
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 3: like a piece of software, you know, but it's not

511
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,000
Speaker 3: an AI because it's never had those experiences, right, Like

512
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:18,680
Speaker 3: what does it mean?

513
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:20,680
Speaker 4: There's a lot of really interesting questions.

514
00:23:20,359 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people they hear AI they

515
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 2: think there's like a machine somewhere with like a glowing

516
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 2: red orb in the middle of it, and like it's

517
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 2: like pulsing. Yeah, exactly, And there's like some neural net.

518
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,119
Speaker 2: You've built some custom hardware where there's like there is

519
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 2: the neural net. It's like a digital brain. It's like software. Right.

520
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 3: These programs they do share things with our brains, like

521
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 3: like how an airplane share something with a bird, Like

522
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 3: they both share aerodynamics and physics and the sky. Like

523
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,640
Speaker 3: these things are sharing some physics of thoughts.

524
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 2: Right with us. Right. But I'm just saying, like, it's

525
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 2: not how you built software. The software does some pretty

526
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,400
Speaker 2: sophisticated things. It is hosted on like a AWS rack

527
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:00,919
Speaker 2: somewhere essentially, I mean maybe now use AWS. So what

528
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 2: is the product? Like, you've got investors, right, No, you

529
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 2: don't know your boots dropped? Yeah, okay, now I listen.

530
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,400
Speaker 2: I've paid for a subscription. I'm a mid journey free now,

531
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 2: So is that the product people pay for subscriptions to

532
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 2: use it? Yeah?

533
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 4: I try to have very honest business.

534
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:17,879
Speaker 3: It's like you're not going to run on your computer

535
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:20,080
Speaker 3: ground the cloud and then we're gonna pays takes money

536
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 3: and then we'll take some margin on that, and that's

537
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 3: the business.

538
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 2: And you feel like that's a good foundation for like

539
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 2: whatever this thing is going to be, Like you can

540
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,360
Speaker 2: build off of that. Yeah, you don't have like Mark

541
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 2: Andrews in company being like, I'll give you X number

542
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:32,880
Speaker 2: of billions of dollars if you can let me turn

543
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 2: this into whatever Mark Andrewson wants.

544
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 4: We do have a lot of vess coming to us

545
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 4: offering us lots of money.

546
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 2: You're not taking the money.

547
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 4: No, we haven't taken anything so far.

548
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:42,239
Speaker 2: That's pretty amazing. Can the business be profitable like this?

549
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 4: We're profitable already? You are, Yeah, that's one reason not

550
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 4: to take money is we're already profitable.

551
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if you're making money, it's definitely good

552
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:50,440
Speaker 2: reason not to take it, right Yeah.

553
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 3: I mean if people come to us and they offer

554
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:53,840
Speaker 3: us money and I'm like, what am I going to

555
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 3: spend it on? And they're like it's good to have it,

556
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:01,000
Speaker 3: you should have it, And I'm like, where you have money,

557
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:02,719
Speaker 3: We're trying to spend it already, and they're like, well,

558
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:03,360
Speaker 3: you just have money.

559
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 4: They just take us take our advice.

560
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:06,239
Speaker 3: It's not about the money, it's about advice, or like

561
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 3: they try to make those arguments and so far having

562
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:10,159
Speaker 3: curt a very compelling argument.

563
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 2: So you're happy to iterate on this product where it's

564
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:15,719
Speaker 2: at now and let the user sort of maybe dictate

565
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 2: some of the direction because of the way that they're

566
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:17,879
Speaker 2: using it.

567
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's kind of beautiful.

568
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:22,200
Speaker 3: It's like we make something and people like it, they

569
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:24,199
Speaker 3: pay us money, and then if they don't like it,

570
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 3: we don't make money.

571
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:26,240
Speaker 4: But like so we have We're like we're trying to

572
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:26,679
Speaker 4: make something.

573
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 3: People like because it supports our stuff, and like it's

574
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 3: very sort of honest to straightforward, and it's the easy business.

575
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 4: I keep it this way. I would keep it this way.

576
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 2: I mean, presumably there's commercial applications for this, right, Yeah.

577
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 2: I think of this because I'm like a guy who

578
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,120
Speaker 2: runs like media businesses. Yeah, I think, oh wow, there's

579
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 2: all the time, like I want art for something, and

580
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 2: I'm actually going to get into a bunch of questions

581
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 2: about the art side of it. But all the time,

582
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 2: like I'm in a newsroom, I'm like publishing you know,

583
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 2: twenty stories a day or fifty stories a day or whatever,

584
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:58,160
Speaker 2: and every one of those pieces has some art attached

585
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 2: to it, Like presumably you're already doing more enterprise level

586
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 2: stuff where like I just want like some design for

587
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 2: a story or for a blog that I'm writing or

588
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:10,400
Speaker 2: whatever that you could generate that any sort of infinite

589
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 2: iterations of original pieces of art, Like, is that a

590
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 2: part of the business.

591
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 3: I would say, we're a consumer business that also has

592
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 3: like some professionals. So it's by like seventy percent consumers

593
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 3: and thirty percent professionals. Right, the professionals are mostly using

594
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:26,719
Speaker 3: it for like brainstorming and concepting. Then the consumers are

595
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 3: having fun and sort of having these reflective, spiritual personal experiences.

596
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 3: I'm not that excited by professional use, even though, like

597
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 3: I'm happy when I see people are finding it to

598
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 3: be useful. Right, the regular people have definitely been a

599
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:52,159
Speaker 3: lot more motivating and inspiring to me, even the professional uses.

600
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:55,640
Speaker 4: I have very little interest in the world as it is.

601
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 3: I want to like make it really different, and it's

602
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 3: much easier do thing really different fornsumers than it is

603
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 3: to like have that immediately impact the sort of professional worlds, right,

604
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 3: and so like for video game people come to me

605
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 3: to like well, and like they literally they have to

606
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 3: file us under their photoshop budget because like the video

607
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 3: game is already budgeted out and it takes sixteen months,

608
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 3: and I have to wait for them to make their

609
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 3: next video game. And I'm like, this is bullshit, right,

610
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 3: I'm so happy that my business isn't reliant on somebody

611
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 3: finishing their video game in sixteen months, you know.

612
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 4: And that's what that world.

613
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 2: Is like, right, Listen. I thought a lot about this, Like,

614
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:27,959
Speaker 2: if I'm making a video game, especially if I'm like

615
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 2: an independent developer, like an indie dev I need art,

616
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 2: I need assets, like I want to make like I

617
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 2: want to make this world that hasn't been made before,

618
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 2: and like normally, and this actually gets into this part

619
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 2: of the conversation I want to have about art and

620
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,879
Speaker 2: about the sort of implications of it. You know, I

621
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 2: might go and hire an artist or whatever to do that,

622
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 2: but now, like mid Journey, potentially, like if I'm using

623
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 2: in that way, I can create assets and backgrounds and

624
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 2: scenery or even brainstorm off of that to build something from.

625
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 2: Like That's that's not the exact thing, but a kind

626
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 2: of iteration of it. But there is a certain very

627
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 2: vocal segment of people out there in the world, and

628
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 2: there are people who are artists who are you know,

629
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 2: digital artists, or who are working artists today, or even

630
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 2: people who are doing fine art that's like hanging in galleries.

631
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 2: And they're like, one, this is theft because it's using

632
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 2: our work. It's using work that is out there that

633
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 2: is available to see as inspiration for these works. And

634
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:22,880
Speaker 2: two it's like they're not getting anything when it does

635
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 2: create new work. Not only is it making their jobs

636
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 2: more sort of obsolete, but it's also like doing it

637
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 2: on the backs of all of their work. It's not

638
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 2: a non compelling argument. There is some reason to think

639
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 2: that all of those sort of notions are in some

640
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:40,239
Speaker 2: way true. Like what's your take on that.

641
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 3: There's a lot of misunderstandings around the technology, and it

642
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 3: makes sense that like artists really aren't going to understand

643
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 3: what this is doing. Some of my favorite images I've

644
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 3: made with any of these models that looked artistic. We're

645
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 3: trained only on photos and so but this is is

646
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 3: it's a system that understands what images look like like.

647
00:28:58,240 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 3: If you've seen enough photos in your life and then

648
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 3: you see it anything you could describe the painting without

649
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 3: having ever having been trained on paintings, and so like,

650
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 3: what this is the thing that understands images, and then

651
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 3: it understands language of the connection with languages and images,

652
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 3: And there's some elements of like knowing what a style

653
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 3: looks like requires having seen the word and the style before.

654
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 3: So there's like some connections to it, right, But like,

655
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 3: largely speaking, it's not I think working like the way

656
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 3: they think it is. And so the problem is that

657
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 3: the artists are scared about being in the data set.

658
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 3: But literally you can just take one of their pictures

659
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 3: and feed into one of these models where that ever,

660
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 3: never have it seen it before, and it can make

661
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 3: pictures like that.

662
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 4: So it's not about the training data. First off.

663
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,719
Speaker 3: If it understands images, it's game over for that battle.

664
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 3: It wants to seem enough general images enough to like

665
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 3: know what textures are and know what colors are. You

666
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 3: can show it a picture and it can make pictures

667
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 3: all like that, never having seen that specific car asia before.

668
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 2: Right, So I mean you know that obviously raises like

669
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 2: all kinds of weird questions about like you know, how

670
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 2: fine tuned does that get? Can I pick any artists

671
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 2: like a photographer I like on Instagram and say in

672
00:29:57,600 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 2: the style of this Instagram photographer, and like it'll do

673
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 2: something well.

674
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 3: I mean, you could certainly put a photo of theirs

675
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 3: into another service and I'll give you a photo that

676
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 3: looks like it. So you know, that's I think that's

677
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 3: really the more that's kind of the technical thing, right,

678
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 3: And so basically, if these systems understand images, they'll be

679
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 3: able to copy anything you show them, regardless of whether

680
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 3: they're trained on them. So I think the training data

681
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 3: is the wrong battle to fight, But there is potentially

682
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 3: a battle to fight over like use of these tools,

683
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 3: like what is good and what is bad use? And certainly,

684
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 3: like the law covers out already, if you make something

685
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 3: that's really derivative of another artist, like too derivative, it

686
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 3: does not okay even legally, right, So like there is

687
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 3: it is covered a little bit by law already. Maybe

688
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 3: there should be something more strict because like it's getting easier.

689
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 3: But that's that's the battle to fight. I think it's

690
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 3: like what's too similar, not like this training data thing,

691
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 3: you know.

692
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 2: I think about like CGI in a way, if you're

693
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 2: building an environment for like a film or something, right,

694
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: like and you're like I want to make a mountain

695
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 2: or whatever. You're not going to hand draw every polygon

696
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 2: that builds the mountain, right, the computer is going to

697
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 2: figure out and even now, like it'll just basically terraform

698
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 2: a mountain right in unreal or whatever.

699
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 4: Yeah.

700
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, And once upon a time most people couldn't read

701
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 3: and write, and now everybody can. And there are more

702
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 3: writers now and more readers now professionally than they're ever

703
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 3: were before.

704
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 2: Right, Well, it's kind of like photography, yeah, right, Like

705
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 2: everybody has like a kind of pro grade camera in

706
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:19,239
Speaker 2: their pocket all the time now, and so like we

707
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 2: were just a wash in really high quality photos, whereas

708
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 2: like if you go back fifty years, not even twenty

709
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 2: five years, the best phone camera you could have was

710
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 2: really shitty and was obviously low quality. We weren't a

711
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 2: wash in just photos everywhere. Right, And like in the

712
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 2: last twenty five years, pretty much everybody's become like somewhat

713
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 2: of a pro am photographer. Yeah, maybe this is a

714
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 2: straw man. I don't want to throw strawma at you,

715
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 2: But like, is there a question about like deep fakes

716
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 2: and sort of like creating reality that does not exist?

717
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 2: Is that something that you guys grapple.

718
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 3: With yeah, I mean it's a real risk for us. Specifically,

719
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 3: we did some special algorithms. It's very hard to make it,

720
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 3: make it deep fake what it does. If you ask

721
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 3: me to make a photo, it'll look realistic, but there's

722
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 3: like something to it in the lighting and the shading

723
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 3: and the hues where it's like just far enough away

724
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 3: from a photo that it looks very realistic, but your

725
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 3: body like knows it's not a real image immediately.

726
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 2: What if I'm imagining something that looks exactly like a

727
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 2: real image, We're not doing that right now. My imagination

728
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: has a limit.

729
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, right now it does. Yeah, yeah.

730
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 2: Would do you think that limit will be lifted for

731
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 2: certain users? Maybe for this guy, I guess the very

732
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 2: creative ideas. Maybe let me check it out.

733
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 4: There's lots of pros and cons to doing that.

734
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 3: So we found that when we flipped it over that boundary,

735
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 3: sometimes it looks perfect, and then sometimes it looks really

736
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 3: like Uncanny Valley zombie like right, it's like upsetting. And

737
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 3: so right now, if we flip it, it's like kind

738
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 3: of say fifty fifty fifty some times looks perfect, sometimes

739
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 3: looks like uncanny, and the uncanny is so like upsetting

740
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 3: to me, as like a visual aesthetic person, I don't

741
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 3: want to make anything that looks like that, right, and

742
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 3: so like I just it's better to just not.

743
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 2: Allow that at all.

744
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 4: Maybe in the future it'll be so good that it

745
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 4: never looks unkenny and it'll take the technology is not.

746
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's no chance, just to be clear,

747
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 2: there's no chance that in like five five years from

748
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 2: now that we won't be at a point where mid

749
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 2: Journey or other programs like it will be able to

750
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 2: create completely photorealistic, if not full moving images for sure,

751
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 2: still like in five years time, right.

752
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, There's got to be multiple directions here.

753
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 3: I think one I'll be trying to like make photo

754
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 3: realistic duplications of reality, and I think the other want

755
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 3: to be like making things that are sort of super real,

756
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 3: like beyond real, right, And I think the beyond real

757
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 3: stuff is where it's both interesting as a human and

758
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 3: probably where all like like consumer and commercial stuff is.

759
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 2: I will say, I'm unabashedly like a fan of this thing,

760
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 2: but like I also can understand people's fear about it.

761
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 2: But people are afraid of a lot of things that

762
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 2: computers do, and for very good reason. I would also say,

763
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 2: and this is kind of your problem. People are afraid

764
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 2: of people like you. I don't mean you personally, You're

765
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 2: a lovely person as far as I know, but like

766
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 2: you are like, hey, I am interested in imagination all

767
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:52,959
Speaker 2: these things. And like if you ask like a Mark Zuckerberg,

768
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 2: like the early stages of Facebook, you know, he would

769
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 2: be like, I just want to connect people, you know,

770
00:33:56,760 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 2: I just want people to like get together in this

771
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 2: social and environment or whatever and connect. But like, actually

772
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 2: down the road, as that thing developed, Mark Zuckerberg made

773
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 2: a lot of like really crazy, weird, bad decisions. They

774
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 2: don't have to go on record by agreeing with me,

775
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 2: but I think in your heart you know it's true.

776
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:14,799
Speaker 2: And so what do you do to protect against like

777
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 2: these things that feel like creative decisions now? Right, Like,

778
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 2: we couldn't have seen the misinformation machine that Facebook was

779
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 2: going to become, with like all these bad actors and

780
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 2: all you know, sort of the ways that you could

781
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 2: abuse the systems, Like we didn't know that that was

782
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 2: going to be a thing until like we started to

783
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 2: see the actual abuse. How do you protect against the

784
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:35,720
Speaker 2: things where you've got to take in like the worst

785
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 2: of humanity? Like, are you doing that on an active basis?

786
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 3: Right?

787
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 2: Because like the thing with a tool like this is

788
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 2: that the best parts of humanity will find like amazing

789
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 2: things to do with it. But there is an equal

790
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: opposite actor there, right, who will do the worst things

791
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 2: with it. So tell me, like how that you build

792
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 2: a product like this and don't let it become destructive.

793
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 4: Yeah.

794
00:34:55,080 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 3: So my life philosophy is that creators imbuing their values

795
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 3: and the things they create, whether they know it or not,

796
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:05,879
Speaker 3: and that those things have a way of spreading those

797
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:09,240
Speaker 3: values even when they're no longer around. That does actually

798
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 3: put a lot of blame on people like Zuckerberg. It

799
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:14,840
Speaker 3: implies that he made Facebook with the wrong values. I

800
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 3: don't know, Mark, But an interesting example that I like

801
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 3: to think about is the defaults of something like Facebook

802
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 3: versus MySpace. Like obviously he was aware of MySpace. We

803
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 3: know that, right, definitely with the main compeditor.

804
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 4: Yeah.

805
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 3: And when I remember going out to MySpace for the

806
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 3: first time and my page was blank and it' said

807
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 3: I had one friend, I was like, who's my friend?

808
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's Tom, Right, Who's Tom? You know,

809
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 3: it's this nice guy he's the guy maker of MySpace.

810
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 3: This is cool, Like Tom's my friend. He must care

811
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 3: about me. I bet I could make other friends that

812
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 3: I don't know, like my face's places where I can

813
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,879
Speaker 3: make friends, right, and Tom cares. And when you sign

814
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 3: on to Facebook, you have no friends and markus certainly

815
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:50,320
Speaker 3: not your friend.

816
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 2: I never consider this. But he's not your first friend

817
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 2: on Facebook. That's definitely like what the fuck does that mean?

818
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 2: What the fuck does that mean?

819
00:35:58,120 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 3: Not only is he not your first friend, but you

820
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:02,359
Speaker 3: have no friends when you join right right right? When

821
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:06,839
Speaker 3: you join Facebook, you are this friendless non person then,

822
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:08,800
Speaker 3: and you have to try to grab out to anybody

823
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,359
Speaker 3: who you already know, like please, somebody who already knows

824
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:12,839
Speaker 3: me be my friend on Facebook? Right?

825
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 2: Interesting? Huh?

826
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 3: And like these there's like these really deep details that

827
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 3: are made by real people who have values, Like he

828
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 3: had to think about this, obviously he thought about Like

829
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 3: he's not dumb, like he must have thought about it.

830
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 2: I mean maybe he wanted to be your first friend,

831
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 2: but they were like actually, like MySpace, Tom could sue

832
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 2: us for like IP stuff like infringement if we do

833
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 2: the same thing that he did.

834
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 3: You know, I think we know he wasn't that cautious

835
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 3: about being suited because it happened, right, Uh, that's true.

836
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 5: I mean.

837
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 3: There's a lot of interesting things like that. I think

838
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 3: that actually maybe everything is that way. The goal is

839
00:36:57,840 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 3: like not to not make things, but to make things

840
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 3: with like really good values and and to have people

841
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 3: with good values making things, and like that making things

842
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 3: is not equivalent between any people.

843
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 2: I agree with you, but like what is the expression,

844
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 2: like the road to Hell's paved with good intentions? Whatever?

845
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 2: I mean, I agree that that you can avoid some

846
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 2: of these mistakes like if you have a different set

847
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:22,280
Speaker 2: of like goals or values, But like do you already

848
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,279
Speaker 2: do things with mid Journey where you're trying to sort

849
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 2: of protect against like misuse, right, Like yeah, obviously like

850
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 2: hate speech or images of violence. I mean I definitely

851
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 2: like tried some stuff that I didn't think was like

852
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 2: going to produce a violent result, and it was like,

853
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 2: we don't do like this kind of image or whatever.

854
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 4: Yeah.

855
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 2: I actually have a question about porn, which is a

856
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 2: big one. Go ahead, Yeah, I mean my guess is

857
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 2: if you wanted Mid Journey to create like incredible original

858
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 2: like porn scenes, because there's a lot of pornography on

859
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:49,839
Speaker 2: the Internet, right, would you say there's quite a bit

860
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 2: of it, and it's all a visual medium basically. Yeah,

861
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 2: I mean there's obviously some erotica out there. There's somewhere

862
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 2: You've got the X rated Mid Journey instance running right

863
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 2: where I can create like full on porn scenes, right,

864
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:03,520
Speaker 2: don't lie to me. I know the truth. Somebody there

865
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 2: is doing it.

866
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 4: Yeah.

867
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 3: You know, when I first thought about this problem, I

868
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 3: was like, who wants an AI generated booty?

869
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 2: Who doesn't?

870
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 3: And then like, honestly, as the albhims get over time,

871
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 3: like I see some booty, then I'm like, it's a

872
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:18,439
Speaker 3: pretty nice booty, Like it's pretty good, pretty good. Yeah,

873
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 3: Like it obviously can do really good like just how

874
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 3: you can make beautiful anything else.

875
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:24,319
Speaker 2: I mean that's a huge deal though, Like I can't

876
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 2: even do like a Renaissance painting of nudes like tasteful

877
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 2: artistic news with mid Journey correct, No, right, Like is

878
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 2: there a tier where I can do nudes? This is

879
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 2: really just I'm asking for myself. But like, you know, no,

880
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 2: you're not gonna let anybody ever do a nude.

881
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 3: I you know, I think it's about like, what is

882
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 3: the thing that like helps the world, like what and

883
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:47,879
Speaker 3: so like. For example, there are two things we have tried.

884
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:49,879
Speaker 3: I can give you two stories. Okay, Well, one is

885
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,479
Speaker 3: when their system wasn't filtering well enough, you'd have people

886
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 3: trying to basically create like their fantasy person basically and

887
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 3: they're like becomes super fixated on like this redhead whatever,

888
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 3: like it becomes this very specific thing over time. Right,

889
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 3: I don't know if that feels healthy. It's certainly a market.

890
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, by the way that phrase, I don't

891
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 2: know if it's healthy, but it's certainly a market. Is

892
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:13,919
Speaker 2: like ninety percent of the things that are available online,

893
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 2: like literally social media is like I don't know if

894
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 2: it's healthy, but there's certainly to.

895
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 3: Someone's going to do it, and I think it's not

896
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 3: going to be healthy right now. There are other things

897
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 3: that we tried. So for example, we did this thing

898
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 3: where we created this chat room and we called it

899
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 3: not safe, don't judge, and we threw like a hundred

900
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 3: people into it, and we turned off all the filters,

901
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 3: oh my god, just to see what would happen, Oh

902
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 3: my god, And it was really interesting. We put them

903
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 3: all in and we go, there's no filters everybody. You

904
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 3: can do whatever you want, but everyone else is going

905
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 3: to see what you see. There's got to be some

906
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 3: people who would be shameless in that scenario. It was

907
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 3: very quiet at first, and then someone goes boobs and

908
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:50,839
Speaker 3: then there's some booth pictures and someone goes like ass

909
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 3: and that it was a good ass picture, and everyone's

910
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 3: like kind of startled it for us, like they didn't

911
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 3: know what to do, right, and then somebody goes, uh,

912
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 3: fifty percent orgy in a Walmart and it just like

913
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 3: these piles of good bodies in a Walmart sounds very disturbing.

914
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, everyone else goes, uh,

915
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 3: it was fifty percent orgy in space, alien orgies, and

916
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden everyone starts losing their minds

917
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 3: and it gets really strange. Eventually it went to like

918
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 3: Bill Cosby eating out Hitler, Like it got pretty intense.

919
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I mean that's a very, that's a very,

920
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 2: that's a full cancel on that image. I would say, yeah, everything, But.

921
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:26,800
Speaker 3: What was happening was like it became so absurd, Yeah,

922
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,319
Speaker 3: that everyone just started to kind of like let go

923
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 3: of all of the bullshit that they knew that like

924
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:36,320
Speaker 3: that they would normally be outraged of. And when somebody

925
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 3: finally did Bill Cosby eating out Hitler, like that was

926
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:41,240
Speaker 3: like an hour in okay.

927
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, and is that when you shut it down? Was

928
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 2: that this was that when you closed that?

929
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 4: I shut it down shortly after.

930
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, But that's like such a small sample and like

931
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:51,799
Speaker 2: it went immediately to a place that would defend like

932
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 2: probably ninety nine percent of the normal users of the Internet.

933
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,400
Speaker 3: But I think what's interesting to hop about psychological experience

934
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 3: of all people had in this room as it went

935
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 3: from like boobs right to like, you know, they kind

936
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:05,320
Speaker 3: of escalated to like fifty percent orgy in Walmart.

937
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:08,360
Speaker 2: Isn't that what always happens though, like you're testing the limits.

938
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 3: No, but like no, but what happened was it's like

939
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 3: at some point they kind of like let go right

940
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:16,839
Speaker 3: during this process and they were like it doesn't matter anymore. Yeah,

941
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 3: Bill cosbyah Hitler, that's really funny. Or someone else did

942
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 3: like Michael Jackson's asshole and it did like a buttthole

943
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:23,919
Speaker 3: where the hole was Michael Jackson's face.

944
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 4: It was funny, it was weird, you know, those people.

945
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 2: Thought it was funny, but like a very large audience

946
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 2: would not think that was funny. So the thing so like,

947
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not funny, like at it at a

948
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,760
Speaker 2: kind of basic level, like you know, the Cosby stuff

949
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 2: is really fucked up and Hitler is Hitler. So like

950
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 2: at a really kind of basic level. If you're like

951
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 2: in good taste, that's very very not in good But

952
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 2: there was no taste anymore. It was like everyone just

953
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 2: like lost it.

954
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,839
Speaker 3: They're like, look, nothing matters, like it's all bullshit, like

955
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 3: it doesn't really like everyone kind of let go. It

956
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,880
Speaker 3: felt very ethartic. At first, they were really shy, and

957
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 3: by the end they had all let go. Yeah, it

958
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 3: was kind of a beautiful process. I don't know though,

959
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 3: but like it went to a place that was pretty offensive, right.

960
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm glad that you don't allow that particular

961
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 3: type of use in the broad I think it was

962
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:08,280
Speaker 3: really interesting and I would say everybody who was involved

963
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 3: in the Spear and stelt it with like cathartic, right,

964
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 3: and a positive like spiritual experience, right, because they realized

965
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 3: how pent up they were in stupid ways and like

966
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 3: maybe the last thing was bad, like we could.

967
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 4: Say that was bad, but there was something.

968
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,239
Speaker 2: No the last thing was bad. The last one was bad.

969
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 2: I don't I don't want to be like a you know,

970
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 2: like the policing culture or whatever. But I mean you

971
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 2: could do it, but no. But the reality is like,

972
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 2: actually like it. I think that raises an interesting sort

973
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 2: of scenario, And it's like, what do people do when

974
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 2: given this kind of unbridled power to create whatever's in

975
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 2: their mind? Like I like to think people come up

976
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 2: with like really cool stuff that's like awesome, but definitely

977
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 2: for sure, there's a segment of the audience. And this

978
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 2: is actually gets back to what I was asking, which

979
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 2: is like, so you ran an experiment with a roomful of people.

980
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 2: They were just like users, like test like beta users

981
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 2: or something.

982
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:52,280
Speaker 4: There was a bunch of users.

983
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 3: We did it for one hour, right, and I said,

984
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 3: if anybody leaked an image, I would ban them for life.

985
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 2: Right. So that's your little kind of window into it.

986
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 2: You're like, Okay, this could get pretty crazy. Oh yeah, obviously,

987
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,240
Speaker 2: the way you've built the system is that you cannot

988
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 2: do those things. I guess. Like the question is like

989
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 2: do you have to be constantly vigilant about like the

990
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 2: ways that the thing might be abused? Like how do

991
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,399
Speaker 2: you counter like abuse you haven't even thought of yet.

992
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 3: We have like forty moderators who kind of watch things

993
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 3: and then they just they have they have a little

994
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:22,240
Speaker 3: slash band commands, so they say slash band titties and also,

995
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 3: no key is the word titties anymore?

996
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 2: Right? Are you actively like yesterday, was there something that

997
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:30,279
Speaker 2: mid Journey produced that was like a surprise to the moderators.

998
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 4: I know that there are words that were banned today.

999
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 2: Like what what was banned? I'm super curious, Like, but

1000
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:37,400
Speaker 2: today you're way far into it. There's like, how many

1001
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 2: people have used mid Journey? Do you know the numbers? Million,

1002
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 2: millions of people. Yeah, so millions of people have been

1003
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 2: in there. But you're still today as of October fifth

1004
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 2: or whatever. Yeah, you've banned words. I'd love to know

1005
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 2: what the last band word was.

1006
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 3: Moderators came back recently and they're like, David, we want

1007
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:58,240
Speaker 3: to unband the following words blood, bloody, sexy, kill, killing, cutting, disturbing,

1008
00:43:58,280 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 3: and gut.

1009
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 2: Wow. What an image.

1010
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:03,799
Speaker 3: They're like, what do you think, David? We could probably

1011
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 3: unban those things. And I was like, Okay, let me

1012
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 3: think about this. Uh, child with guts, Bible across the ground,

1013
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 3: disturbing huge pools of blood and like, ooh, yeah, we

1014
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:14,279
Speaker 3: probably don't want that right where I was like a

1015
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,399
Speaker 3: little girl cutting themselves, Like oh yeah, that seems bad right.

1016
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 2: Well key, But so here's my question for you, And

1017
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 2: I think you've got like kind of a crazy responsibility.

1018
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying this to be a jerk at all,

1019
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 2: but like you're just like a guy who's interested in

1020
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 2: creating this product and create this kind of beautiful and

1021
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 2: imaginative and exciting images and beyond. But you're not like

1022
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 2: a linguist. I don't know you're all of your background,

1023
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 2: but I mean, like you're not like an ethicist. Do

1024
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:41,640
Speaker 2: you employ an ethicist at the company? Do you employ

1025
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 2: like linguistic experts? How diverse is the team? I think

1026
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 2: these are like things that people are going to want

1027
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:48,800
Speaker 2: to know, which is like you mentioned the Bill Cosby

1028
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 2: Hitler thing, and I can think of like a bunch

1029
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 2: of people who are not like a white Jewish guy.

1030
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 2: And I say this as a white Jewish guy who

1031
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 2: would be much more offended about some of that stuff,

1032
00:44:57,719 --> 00:44:59,760
Speaker 2: or people with different experience.

1033
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 3: That as an example of a pretty outrageous thing that

1034
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 3: was my outrageous and I get that, and no, no, I

1035
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 3: understand it.

1036
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 2: Like you were in this experiment, somebody took you to

1037
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 2: this crazy place and then you're like, all right, we

1038
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 2: got to shut it down. This is sort of what

1039
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 2: I was trying to get to is like, how do

1040
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 2: you make a company that has all the lofty and

1041
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 2: interesting and exciting ideals I think you have, but also

1042
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 2: protect against building a product that ultimately ends up repeating

1043
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 2: the mistakes of the facebooks or the twitters of the world.

1044
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 2: And the question does come down to, like when you're

1045
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 2: having those conversations, who's in the room, who's having that

1046
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 2: conversation with you? Like, what are you going to do?

1047
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 2: This is my being putting my hardcore journalist hat on,

1048
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 2: Like what are you going to do to make sure

1049
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:38,319
Speaker 2: that you have conversations with a big enough set of

1050
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 2: people and with a smart enough set of people who

1051
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 2: are experts in these fields, like in the fields of

1052
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 2: like ethics and linguistics and like you know, history, and

1053
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 2: that it's a diverse group, like to actually make a

1054
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 2: product that serves everybody and not just one that feels

1055
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:53,399
Speaker 2: like cool to like a couple of you know, Jewish guys,

1056
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:55,759
Speaker 2: like us, but may not work for a million other

1057
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 2: people in the world.

1058
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of questions there. I'm

1059
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 3: okay not serving everybody. Like if this is I Maginty's

1060
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:05,080
Speaker 3: a two million person thing, is ever bigger than that, I'm.

1061
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 2: Happy with that. But you want to make it inclusive,

1062
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 2: I would assume, Yeah, I want it to be inclusive.

1063
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,320
Speaker 3: But also if it's only two million people, I'd be

1064
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 3: okay with that, Like I don't, like, I'm not I

1065
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 3: don't have this like this desire.

1066
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 2: You want two million of the same people, though you

1067
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:17,320
Speaker 2: don't want two million to the same people, two million

1068
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:18,280
Speaker 2: white Jewish guys.

1069
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 3: If it makes two million white Jewish guys really happy

1070
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,839
Speaker 3: and improves their lives in a significant way, like they've

1071
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 3: made the world better. Now, obviously I'd like to make

1072
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 3: it diverse, like and we try really hard there. But

1073
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 3: like I mean, at the end of the day, it's

1074
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 3: it's more important that it's good for the people who

1075
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 3: interact with it then that it has as many people

1076
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 3: as possible.

1077
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:36,839
Speaker 4: And that's the first trade off.

1078
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:38,799
Speaker 3: That's the first that's a huge trade off, because most

1079
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 3: people decided to not make that trade off.

1080
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 2: No, I agree with you that, like, if you're thinking

1081
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:44,840
Speaker 2: of like the infinite audience, obviously you don't want to

1082
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 2: be like every person should be in this thing or

1083
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 2: using this thing or whatever. But like, I guess it's

1084
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 2: such a sensitive space where like you've built a tool

1085
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 2: that can create something out of nothing, Like you build

1086
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 2: a tool that can make a dream look like real basically,

1087
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 2: And so yeah, you know, how do you do it

1088
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:02,960
Speaker 2: the right way? But I feel like here's a chance

1089
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:05,239
Speaker 2: to bring a bunch of people into the conversation that

1090
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 2: were never there at Google on day one. When I

1091
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 2: think about any new technology like this, I always think now,

1092
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 2: and perhaps because I've been so abused by the technology

1093
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:17,120
Speaker 2: companies that have existed before us, you know what could

1094
00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 2: go wrong? Right? And how do you prevent that?

1095
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a lot of things we do, so

1096
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 3: like I do office hours every week for four hours

1097
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 3: where I just talk to as many people as I can.

1098
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'll do a theme thing like I brought up

1099
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 3: like twelve women once and I said, like, let's have

1100
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 3: a women panel, and I want to ask everybody how

1101
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:38,280
Speaker 3: do you feel about bikini photos? Like should I ban bikini?

1102
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 2: And that's one way of getting the women's side of things.

1103
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 3: Because every single day I heard some asshole dude who's like,

1104
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,919
Speaker 3: hits are natural. I like, bikini photos, have as many

1105
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 3: as you can, and then like women who are uncomfortable,

1106
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:50,359
Speaker 3: And I was like, you know what, I just want

1107
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 3: to hear a bunch of women talk about this issue

1108
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 3: of how do you feel aout the bikini photos and

1109
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:55,479
Speaker 3: like I will do whatever you say.

1110
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 4: I was like, should I ban bikinis? That was like

1111
00:47:57,400 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 4: the simplest question.

1112
00:47:58,200 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 2: Did you ban bikinis?

1113
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 3: They decided group like we do not want you to

1114
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 3: band bikinis, like ninety five percent. It was like pretty unanimous,

1115
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 3: but we want you to hide them so that none

1116
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 3: of us ever have to see some dude making a bikini.

1117
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:11,359
Speaker 4: And so that's what we did.

1118
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 2: It's a good middle ground. To me, this is so

1119
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 2: weird because like the reality is like the naked human

1120
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 2: body is that I'm not like, on its face offensive

1121
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 2: to me in any way, Like it's like very normal.

1122
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 4: I agree, Yeah, And.

1123
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:24,800
Speaker 2: It's like funny to think that you've got a buffer

1124
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 2: against like people abusing the system who are making weird

1125
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:30,280
Speaker 2: like you know, sexual bikini photos or whatever.

1126
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean what the women basically said on the

1127
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 3: on the whole is that they're like they're basically even

1128
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 3: we like a little cleavage, but like.

1129
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 4: What an average guy thinks it's sexy.

1130
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 3: It's really easy for most of us to find creepy

1131
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:41,879
Speaker 3: and unwelcoming, and so basically we don't have we don't

1132
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 3: feel like we should have to see that like against

1133
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:44,319
Speaker 3: our will.

1134
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 2: That's so true both in AI and in life.

1135
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 3: There's a lot of these sort of nuanced things like technically,

1136
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 3: it probably should be able to do a tasteful nude,

1137
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 3: but it shouldn't be able to do like a hyper

1138
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 3: sexualized nude. Like technically like that seems right, you know,

1139
00:48:57,520 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 3: but it's it's hard. That's a really hard boundary, you know.

1140
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 3: I mean it's a question of art, right, Like, yeah,

1141
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 3: what's porn? It's like, well, you know when you see it,

1142
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 3: and it's like, but there's different levels of that, right,

1143
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,320
Speaker 3: have we even trying to teach the system? Actually lately

1144
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 3: some of these nuances. We have certain users who go

1145
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 3: in and they rate images randomly. Right, We find that

1146
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 3: on the whole, people very rarely say anything is offensive,

1147
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 3: like very rare, so when they say it, it's interesting, right,

1148
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 3: And then we and we aggreate all those together, and

1149
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:24,320
Speaker 3: then we teach the AI. We're like, hey, regardless of

1150
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,319
Speaker 3: whether or not something is offensive, this is how people

1151
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 3: are responding to your images.

1152
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 2: Interesting.

1153
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 4: And then what it does it actually changed its behavior?

1154
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 2: Do you worry you're you're creating a kind of prudish AI? Like,

1155
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 2: do you worry that, like you're actually making a sexually

1156
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 2: repressed AI that like is going to be weird about

1157
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 2: sex and human bodies.

1158
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 3: I think the question is, like when we build these technologies,

1159
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 3: like what battles do you want to fight?

1160
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 4: And where do we want to push the world forward?

1161
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:47,839
Speaker 2: Right?

1162
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:50,719
Speaker 3: And like me, I want the world to be more imaginative,

1163
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,719
Speaker 3: like and I want to push the boundaries of like

1164
00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:56,960
Speaker 3: aesthetics in creation. I think that's really interesting and it

1165
00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 3: is really worthwhile. But I can be a little picky.

1166
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 3: I'm not as interested in doing that or violence sexuality. Right,

1167
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 3: there is an argument we have to push the batteries

1168
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 3: of sexuality. Let's make the world way more sexual. Someone

1169
00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 3: else can do that. I just don't feel.

1170
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 4: Spiritually compelled for that.

1171
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I think that, like there's this broader thing,

1172
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 3: which is like letting people reflect. The average person comes

1173
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 3: in here and they say something like Maltese dog in

1174
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 3: heaven and I reach out. I'm like, hey, why'd you

1175
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:20,959
Speaker 3: do that? That's interesting and they go because my dog

1176
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,280
Speaker 3: just died. And I'm like, oh shit, are you okay?

1177
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:25,080
Speaker 3: And they're like yeah, this is making me feel better.

1178
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 3: Where there was like another woman and she goes like

1179
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 3: she was putting in these weird lyrics and I'm like,

1180
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:30,319
Speaker 3: what are you doing? Like these don't show up on

1181
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 3: Google and she goes, When I was very young, my

1182
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:34,200
Speaker 3: older brother died and all he left me was this,

1183
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:35,480
Speaker 3: like this cassette tape.

1184
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 4: Of these thongs.

1185
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 3: And I'm literally just putting lyrics in and I'm feeling

1186
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 3: closest person never got to be part of my life.

1187
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 4: Wow, it's not always death.

1188
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:42,760
Speaker 3: There was one person who was like Temple of Donuts,

1189
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 3: Like why are you doing Temple of Donuts? And like, well,

1190
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 3: I'm an atheist, but I don't really understand worship or religion,

1191
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 3: but I do understand like donuts and sweets. It's like

1192
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 3: combining all the things I don't understand one of the

1193
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 3: things I do understand, and I'm like trying to understand,

1194
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 3: like what is worship?

1195
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 4: The Hong Kong girl. So she said, I'm a woman.

1196
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 3: I'm in Hong Kong, and the one thing your parents talk,

1197
00:51:00,239 --> 00:51:01,719
Speaker 3: I never want you to be as an artist. And

1198
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 3: so I'm a banker and I'm a good banker. But

1199
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:06,000
Speaker 3: now as I'm starting to get to use Mid Journey,

1200
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:08,360
Speaker 3: I'm starting to get to feel like I'm getting to

1201
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:10,040
Speaker 3: be the person I never got to be, and I'm

1202
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 3: having to think about that.

1203
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:13,320
Speaker 4: And so like these are like the good stories.

1204
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 2: They're like, no, those are great stories.

1205
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 4: Somebody else is.

1206
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 5: Just like huge chits covered in blood and it's like

1207
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 5: I don't care about that person. That's not a real

1208
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:23,759
Speaker 5: human story, and like maybe there's something going on there,

1209
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 5: but it's not interesting. Like there's so many interesting things

1210
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 5: going on, and I want to create a space for that,

1211
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:31,399
Speaker 5: and I'm doing that. There's a path that we see

1212
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 5: over and over again with people in Mid Journey almost

1213
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:35,240
Speaker 5: call like the heroes in Mid Journey. And what happens

1214
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 5: is they come in and they realize they can make

1215
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 5: pictures of something they like. For me, with cats and cyberpunk, right,

1216
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:41,839
Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, I make sappunk cats.

1217
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:43,799
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, I'll make tarpunk shitte.

1218
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:46,839
Speaker 3: Pre Charpuk Ninjas and make Starapunks and I'm making chappok everything.

1219
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, like you combine all

1220
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 3: the things you like and then you just burn out

1221
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:51,880
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh my god, I never liked sypunk.

1222
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 4: I never want to see starpunk again. Starpunk isn't me.

1223
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:56,920
Speaker 3: And then and then it's like month one, Month one,

1224
00:51:57,000 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 3: and then month two is You're like, but then who

1225
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 3: am I? And then you start looking at everybody else's pictures.

1226
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 3: You're like art deco, am I art deco? Or like

1227
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 3: vapor ways, am I vapor waves? And then you start

1228
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 3: like looking at everything and you're and you're kind of

1229
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:10,319
Speaker 3: saying like you know, and you're trying to do this

1230
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 3: path of like who am I?

1231
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:13,839
Speaker 4: What is my real aesthetic? And then you learn a lot.

1232
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 3: People learn like all this hard history and all these movements,

1233
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,239
Speaker 3: and they start putting things together into like the sense

1234
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:20,600
Speaker 3: of who they are. And then like month three is

1235
00:52:20,600 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 3: like you have this like aesthetic universe and you're starting

1236
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:25,160
Speaker 3: to like apply it to everything. You're like, it's like,

1237
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 3: you know, it's a little bit of this, a little

1238
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 3: bit of that. It's all these things together and you're

1239
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 3: like creating all this stuff, and it's like you're like

1240
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 3: having to like your people are paying.

1241
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:33,239
Speaker 4: Off pathetic debts.

1242
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:35,239
Speaker 3: They're like exploring the nature of their identities and then

1243
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:37,439
Speaker 3: they're like expressing it. They're like it's like they're working

1244
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:40,280
Speaker 3: on all this shit, and like it's really really healthy

1245
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:44,840
Speaker 3: and it's literally just regular people and almost nobody shares anything.

1246
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 3: It's crazy, like almost no pictures ever shared and almost

1247
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:50,800
Speaker 3: no pictures ever sold, right, And it's just like it's

1248
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 3: mostly just regular people having this like really healthy experience.

1249
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:57,400
Speaker 2: So to be clear, basically you see this as a

1250
00:52:57,440 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 2: form of therapy. Is that correct?

1251
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:01,040
Speaker 4: At least thirty percent of all the use is literally

1252
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 4: art therapy.

1253
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 2: Right, Wow, mental health through ai I was.

1254
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:09,000
Speaker 3: Entirely unexpected, but it's really important. It's clearly this tool

1255
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:10,719
Speaker 3: for reflection. And then people are starting to meet each

1256
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 3: other like and they're starting to like form these groups

1257
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 3: and they're like pushing these aesthetic boundaries and discovering new

1258
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,440
Speaker 3: things and like that's really beautiful and it's obviously part

1259
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 3: of an honest and positive future, right, and like that's

1260
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 3: what I care about.

1261
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:23,880
Speaker 2: Okay, really quickly, and then we got to wrap up,

1262
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:25,840
Speaker 2: But do you think that like there's a future state

1263
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 2: where it's like mid Journey is its own Instagram.

1264
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 3: There's gonna be like that, but it's crazier. I think

1265
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:34,359
Speaker 3: the future is more of like, well, it's more like

1266
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:37,720
Speaker 3: liquid imagination swirling around the room and like forming mountains

1267
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:40,399
Speaker 3: and little trees and animals and little ruins. You're trying

1268
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:42,240
Speaker 3: to figure out how to get people's surfboards or boats

1269
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:46,520
Speaker 3: like surf like oceans of liquid imagination, like discover entirely

1270
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:49,399
Speaker 3: new lands. But it's like very different thing, and it's

1271
00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:51,799
Speaker 3: like it forms like a new substance that you kind

1272
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:55,759
Speaker 3: of can create the world with and manifest through and

1273
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 3: like reflect through, and like that's what it's about.

1274
00:53:58,200 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 4: It's like creating a new substance.

1275
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,760
Speaker 3: It's really not about like making an Instagram or making

1276
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 3: poor or huge tips. It's obvious that all that stuff

1277
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 3: will happen, but that it doesn't matter, Like it's not

1278
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:11,000
Speaker 3: the real thing. It's like there was a civilization before

1279
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 3: engines and after engines, and now the fun thing is

1280
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 3: moving to a civilization that has these engines of imagination,

1281
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 3: and how does that transform things?

1282
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:19,680
Speaker 4: Like how did engines stright?

1283
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 3: I think we have highways, we have boats, we have

1284
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 3: like huge international trade, Like there's.

1285
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:24,880
Speaker 2: Like a lot of stuff.

1286
00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:28,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all stark. A lot of people in technology

1287
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 3: feel like we have no pasts. A lot of regular

1288
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 3: people literally feel like we have no future, right, But

1289
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:34,279
Speaker 3: like I feel like like we're really mid journey in this,

1290
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 3: Like we have this rich and beautiful past behind us

1291
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 3: and this like wondrous and unimaginable future ahead of us, right,

1292
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 3: And like the whole goal of making anything is to

1293
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 3: figure out what we can be and what that can

1294
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:47,399
Speaker 3: be in like a positive and explorative and wonderful, humane way.

1295
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:49,640
Speaker 4: And like I don't know. That's what I'm trying to

1296
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 4: do and hopefully it shows up a little bit in

1297
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 4: the stuff.

1298
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 2: But like I agree, I'm so on board with that sentiment.

1299
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 2: Like I one hundred percent agree, Like we don't know

1300
00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 2: yet what all of this is going to be be.

1301
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:01,960
Speaker 2: It's like we have to figure that out. And that's

1302
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 2: why like people are like we're done, and it's like, no,

1303
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 2: we just really got started, like with technology, I think,

1304
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 2: and what it can do. I agree, Like you, you

1305
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,239
Speaker 2: are echoing a sentiment that I have definitely spoken on

1306
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:15,239
Speaker 2: on more than one occasion. David, this is first off,

1307
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 2: super fucking interesting shit that you're building. Extremely fascinating conversation.

1308
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 2: We should do like a check in like a year

1309
00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 2: from now or something to see all of the new

1310
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 2: mid journey things that have been created.

1311
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:26,720
Speaker 4: So it's gonna get really scary. Even the next six months,

1312
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 4: six months is going to be really intense.

1313
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:30,880
Speaker 3: Like six months is the farthest I can see twelve

1314
00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 3: months actually, I actually don't.

1315
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:34,359
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll do a six month check in. We'll see

1316
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 2: if bid journey is that it's like three quarter journey.

1317
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 4: It's gonna be.

1318
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna be.

1319
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 4: It's it's gonna be moving really fast.

1320
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 3: It's kinda seemed frightening to a lot of people, but

1321
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:47,800
Speaker 3: it's like it's it's like an honest shot at the future.

1322
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 4: You know.

1323
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:56,680
Speaker 2: I'm ready, David, Thank you so much. Well, that is

1324
00:55:56,680 --> 00:55:59,040
Speaker 2: our show for this week. We'll be back next week

1325
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:03,040
Speaker 2: with more what Future, And as always, I wish you

1326
00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 2: and your family the very best.