WEBVTT - Radio Better Offline: Adam Becker

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<v Speaker 1>Also media, step up to the slop trough. It's time

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<v Speaker 1>for better offline and I'm your host ed ze Tron.

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<v Speaker 1>As ever by the merchandise sign up to the newsletter

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<v Speaker 1>message me on goot. I'm everywhere. But today I'm joined

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<v Speaker 1>by the author of a book about how much I

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<v Speaker 1>should be punished, what punishments I deserve, and how long

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<v Speaker 1>I should be punished. I'm of course talking about more

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<v Speaker 1>Everything Forever, written by astrophysicist Adam Becker.

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<v Speaker 2>Adam, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me ed,

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<v Speaker 2>It's good to be here. What's the book actually about?

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<v Speaker 2>I apologize now, it's okay. The book is actually about

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<v Speaker 2>the horrible ideas that tech billionaires have about the future

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<v Speaker 2>that they're trying to shove down our throats, and why

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<v Speaker 2>they don't work.

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<v Speaker 1>You're an astrophysicist, right.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, by training, what is that? Well, I did a

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<v Speaker 2>PhD in astrophysics looking at how much we could learn

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<v Speaker 2>about what was happening right after the Big Bang by

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<v Speaker 2>looking at what was happening in the universe. You know

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<v Speaker 2>what's happening in the universe right now.

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<v Speaker 1>So how did you get into the touching in the

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<v Speaker 1>world of Silicon Valley because you have to talk about

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<v Speaker 1>some of the damnest bavots I've ever done.

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<v Speaker 2>Sane. Yeah. Well, I started out my career as a

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<v Speaker 2>science journalist straight out of grad school and was writing

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<v Speaker 2>mostly about physics.

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<v Speaker 1>Why are you writing?

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<v Speaker 2>I was writing for pretty much everybody. I started at

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<v Speaker 2>New Scientists and then moved on to writing for the BBC,

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<v Speaker 2>wrote a book about quantum physics, wrote some stuff for NPR,

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<v Speaker 2>the New York Times, very co American. Yeah, and you know,

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<v Speaker 2>like was sort of having a normal science journalist career,

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<v Speaker 2>and then in twenty sixteen, the weirdest fucking thing happened.

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<v Speaker 2>What happened? You know? We elected a fascist? Oh right, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>that thing, yeah, that thing.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>And I thought, oh, you know I should be doing

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<v Speaker 2>something more to, you know, directly combat this. If I

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<v Speaker 2>write another book, I would like it to have a

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<v Speaker 2>more directly political angle, right, and uh. I live in Berkeley,

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<v Speaker 2>I live in the San Francisco Bay area and just

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<v Speaker 2>surrounded by tech bros constantly and was getting tired of

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<v Speaker 2>their bullshit and it seemed more and more directly connected

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<v Speaker 2>to the disintegration of American politics. And I thought, Okay,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, somebody needs to write about how they have

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<v Speaker 2>these insane ideas about the future and how that informs

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<v Speaker 2>their terrible politics. So how long have you lived in

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<v Speaker 2>the Bay? God, oh, thirteen years?

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, so you've got like a good backing of where

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<v Speaker 1>the bay has been in that time as well, because

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<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of these people are transplants. And

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<v Speaker 1>I say this is someone who literally moved to the

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<v Speaker 1>Bay for two years in twenty fourteen. Yeah, like and

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<v Speaker 1>even then it was weird watching what they were doing.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah but wait, so that was so you've been there

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<v Speaker 1>thirteen years. But when did the book get started? Like,

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<v Speaker 1>how did all this because it's this kind of came

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<v Speaker 1>out of no way in a good way.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, No, I got started on the book probably

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<v Speaker 2>the first inklings of it were around twenty nineteen or

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<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty, right before the pandemic. I uncovered a online

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<v Speaker 2>magazine that was trying to sanewash creationism and climate denial

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<v Speaker 2>that was being funded by Peter Teel. Hell yeah yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>And I broke that story and thought, oh, yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>these these tech bros are awful and everybody thinks they

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<v Speaker 2>know a lot about science and technology. Even the people

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<v Speaker 2>who don't like them seem to think that they know

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<v Speaker 2>a lot about science and technology, right, and it's just

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<v Speaker 2>not true. Like they don't know anything about physics, they

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<v Speaker 2>don't know anything about biology. Peter Teel thinks that creationism

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<v Speaker 2>is you know, plausible, or that evolution isn't the whole story.

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<v Speaker 2>That's nonsense, you know. Elon Musk thinks that we can

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<v Speaker 2>live on Mars. That's nonsense, or at least he says that.

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<v Speaker 2>Whether he actually believes it, I don't know.

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<v Speaker 1>But that's actually kind of my question. Yeah, how much

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<v Speaker 1>of this shit do you actually think they believe? Because

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<v Speaker 1>I know Bezos is tied up with the long Now Foundation. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>and they do make nice tea over there. However, the

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<v Speaker 1>rest of the stuff not so good. But how much

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<v Speaker 1>do they really believe in this? Because I just I

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<v Speaker 1>you've said that this is kind of a homecoming for them.

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<v Speaker 1>This is kind of them coming back to the things

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<v Speaker 1>they truly believe. I don't think they believe in anything thing.

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<v Speaker 1>I think some of them don't believe in anything. Go

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<v Speaker 1>into I'm not saying, I'm you know that's really right here?

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<v Speaker 2>Absolutely. Yeah. So, like, for example, I think it's very plausible. Obviously,

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<v Speaker 2>we can't know for sure, but I think it's very

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<v Speaker 2>plausible that, say, Sam Altman doesn't believe in anything. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>that's quite possible. Yeah right. Karen Howell makes a good

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<v Speaker 2>case for that in her reporting and in her.

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<v Speaker 1>Books Excellent, being a guest on the show, she's fantastic.

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<v Speaker 2>She's amazing. But at the other end of the spectrum,

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<v Speaker 2>I think it's very plausible that Jeff Bezos really really

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<v Speaker 2>does believe that we need to go to space. And

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<v Speaker 2>the reason I say that is he when he was

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<v Speaker 2>the vale edictorian of his high school down in Florida

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<v Speaker 2>in like nineteen seventy eight or something like that, he

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<v Speaker 2>gave a speech about how we need to go to space,

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<v Speaker 2>we humanity need to go to That.

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<v Speaker 1>Doesn't feel as ludicrous as a belief like we go

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<v Speaker 1>to space. But what does go to space mean for

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<v Speaker 1>this guy?

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<v Speaker 2>Well, that's the thing. The specifics of that belief that

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<v Speaker 2>he professed at the time are pretty similar to what

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<v Speaker 2>he's saying now, and it is pretty ridiculous, like he

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<v Speaker 2>has said very recently, and it echoes the stuff from

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<v Speaker 2>his valedictorian speech when he was like eighteen, that we

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<v Speaker 2>need to move into you know, hundreds of thousands or

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<v Speaker 2>millions of enormous cylindrical space stations. Oh, of course. And

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<v Speaker 2>have you know a trillion people living in the Solar.

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<v Speaker 1>System tubes, yes, of trillions of peach exactly, do just

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<v Speaker 1>work really well, like the hyperloop for example, Yeah, a

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<v Speaker 1>successful tube.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, or you know the Internet itself a series of tubes. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>And because those tubes in the Internet worked, of course,

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<v Speaker 1>the tubes work in space.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's I think that the bongo.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, this is science. I believe I failed all

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<v Speaker 1>the sciences. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry, but no,

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<v Speaker 1>keep going.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So you know, he said, then we can like

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<v Speaker 2>make Earth into a beautiful park that you know, allows

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<v Speaker 2>us to you know, save the environments. I know. And

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<v Speaker 2>he said, when we have a trillion people living in

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<v Speaker 2>the Solar System, we can have a thousand Mozarts and

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<v Speaker 2>a thousand Einstein's. I'm like, buddy, we probably already have

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<v Speaker 2>people who are just as talented as Mozart and Einstein

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<v Speaker 2>and all the other geniuses of history who are living

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<v Speaker 2>and dying in poverty. Yes, and you know you don't

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<v Speaker 2>care about that, And you don't seem to care about

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<v Speaker 2>climate change because you know, the carbon footprint of the

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<v Speaker 2>Blue Origin rockets and the Amazon warehouses and all that stuff, right,

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<v Speaker 2>But instead of that, he's like, no, no, no, the solution

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<v Speaker 2>is to go to space. Like, why that's not gonna work.

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<v Speaker 1>Because more space is up in space, Adam, you put

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<v Speaker 1>cube and sp It's really it's funny because these people

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<v Speaker 1>are insanely rich but also sound very stupid. Yeah, when

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<v Speaker 1>you really get down to the trumps of its life,

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<v Speaker 1>what's your solution, Jeff of Gold, the money in the

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<v Speaker 1>world tubes yep, tubes of space tubes, yep, trillion people,

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<v Speaker 1>mozarts more mozarts, just sweating.

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<v Speaker 2>Profusely, exactly. Yeah, And he does try to give an argument,

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<v Speaker 2>but the argument is hilariously bad. He says that we

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<v Speaker 2>need to go to space, among other reasons, like he's

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<v Speaker 2>all that environmental stuff, but he the thing he keeps

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<v Speaker 2>harping on and coming back to is he says, we

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<v Speaker 2>need to keep using more energy per capita?

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<v Speaker 1>Right, why?

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<v Speaker 2>Right? Why? Exactly? He never says exactly WHOA Okay, Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>he says. The only defense he gives for that is

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<v Speaker 2>he says, if we don't do that, we'll have a

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<v Speaker 2>civilization of stagnation and stasis.

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<v Speaker 1>As opposed to now when there's tons of innovation happening

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<v Speaker 1>and all of big tech is focused on a diverse

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<v Speaker 1>series of options rather than one big expensive dogshit thing.

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<v Speaker 2>Precisely, he nailed it. Yeah, and he says we have

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<v Speaker 2>to go to space because like otherwise, we're gonna run

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<v Speaker 2>out of energy here on Earth. We won't be able

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<v Speaker 2>to keep expanding the energy we used per capita. What

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<v Speaker 2>does the energy do?

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<v Speaker 1>Well?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, first of all, what does the energy do? And second, uh,

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<v Speaker 2>this is this is actually my favorite part. Hell yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>he is right that if you just like idiotically kept

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<v Speaker 2>that trend going in a way that's physically impossible, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>for for hundreds of years, you would run out of

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<v Speaker 2>energy here on Earth. Like you, you wouldn't be able

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<v Speaker 2>to keep the energy users per capita growing at the

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<v Speaker 2>exponential rate that it has been in about three hundred

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<v Speaker 2>years of be using all the energy that we get

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<v Speaker 2>from the Sun here on the Earth. But if you

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<v Speaker 2>keep that trend going, if you try to do that

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<v Speaker 2>by you know, going out and living in tubes in

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<v Speaker 2>the solar system, right, that only gets you like another

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<v Speaker 2>few hundred maybe one thousand years. Then you're using all

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<v Speaker 2>the energy that comes from the sun.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, and we've still not really established what we're using

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<v Speaker 1>the energy for. Nope, nope, no, so Beata sentus Yeah, finally.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, and this and this brings us to like the

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<v Speaker 2>bullshit that Sam Altman said about building a dice and sphere.

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<v Speaker 1>Exclaim what a dice sphere is? I thought it was

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<v Speaker 1>the ball on the fucking vacuum.

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<v Speaker 2>But yeah, no, that's the only kind of dice and

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<v Speaker 2>sphere that actually exists. No, a dice in sphere is

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<v Speaker 2>a giant, mega construction project, you know, beyond anything that

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<v Speaker 2>anyone's ever actually built or probably could build. That just

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<v Speaker 2>encloses a star and captures all of the energy from

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<v Speaker 2>that star.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, and if we ever built anything like that, no,

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<v Speaker 1>of course, okay, just making sure we So it's building

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<v Speaker 1>a big.

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<v Speaker 2>Around the star to capture all of the energy from

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<v Speaker 2>that star to use it for data.

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<v Speaker 1>Where would the energy How would the energy get from

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<v Speaker 1>the star to Earth?

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, oh, tubes, yeah, toobes exactly. Yeah, so I battery.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, like, it's so safe, it's so cool. We live

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<v Speaker 1>in a site. I wish I could do what he does.

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<v Speaker 1>I would be saying shit all the time. I just

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<v Speaker 1>I'd be like, yeah, actually, you need we can change

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<v Speaker 1>the world if we just create a series of tubes

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<v Speaker 1>that just gave me money every day. No, wait, that's

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<v Speaker 1>too that's that's too obvious. I'd need to come up

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<v Speaker 1>with the best.

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<v Speaker 2>Well no, I mean, I just think it's pretty interesting

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<v Speaker 2>that these guys are spouting obvious bullshit and the only

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<v Speaker 2>reason people listen to them is that they're rich. Like

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<v Speaker 2>if if they weren't saying this stuff, but then I

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<v Speaker 2>went around saying this stuff, nobody would listen to me

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<v Speaker 2>unless they funded me.

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<v Speaker 1>If a guy on the street who smelled kind of

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<v Speaker 1>bad walked up to you and said, the price of

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<v Speaker 1>intelligence is getting too cheap to meet her, you'd be like,

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<v Speaker 1>all right, mate, yeah, can't do anything but clammy Sammy

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<v Speaker 1>says it and everyone loses their fucking shit.

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<v Speaker 2>Well yeah, and that that Actually, that brings me to

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<v Speaker 2>something else that we were plenty to talk about, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>speaking of weird dudes on the street who are not

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<v Speaker 2>billionaires making insane claims. Ellie azer yod Kowski.

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<v Speaker 1>That's how you say his name, don't even Liza, I

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<v Speaker 1>don't really. Here's the thing. He's a disrespectful sex is

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<v Speaker 1>more on Grift. So I really don't give a shit.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, it is rather bizarre that anybody listens to

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<v Speaker 2>anything he has to say about anything he's So, who

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<v Speaker 2>is the fuck this fuck? Nun? No? No, the the

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<v Speaker 2>alternate title for my book, like in my head the

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<v Speaker 2>head Kennon was these fucking people. Yeah, I love that.

0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.240
<v Speaker 1>No, No, I write these fucking bosses a lot. Right,

0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.160
<v Speaker 1>Ellie's a Yudkowski?

0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.679
<v Speaker 2>Yes, who what does he do? Why does what does

0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:18.960
<v Speaker 2>he do?

0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.160
<v Speaker 1>And why does so many seemingly smart people believe this tipshit?

0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.760
<v Speaker 2>So Ellie as a Judkowski, I'm gonna give you, like

0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.880
<v Speaker 2>the formal version of who he is, what he might say,

0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.520
<v Speaker 2>what would be in like his online bio, and then

0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.839
<v Speaker 2>I'll tell you the reality. Okay, so uh. Ellie as

0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.800
<v Speaker 2>a jud Kowski is the co founder of the Machine

0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.880
<v Speaker 2>Intelligence Research Institute, which has been around for about twenty

0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:49.840
<v Speaker 2>five years, and he has been researching artificial superintelligence for

0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.480
<v Speaker 2>all of that time and mostly going on about how

0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:57.400
<v Speaker 2>dangerous it could be if anybody built it without ensuring

0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:59.079
<v Speaker 2>that it would serve human.

0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:00.600
<v Speaker 1>And this is just to be clear. He has no

0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.640
<v Speaker 1>scientific knowledge. Can he even code? Like? Does he have

0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:05.560
<v Speaker 1>any kind of.

0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.079
<v Speaker 2>He doesn't even have a high school diploma.

0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.640
<v Speaker 1>So I won't judge people for that, but I'll judge

0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:11.840
<v Speaker 1>him for all the rest of here's the thing.

0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, no, I'm not judging him for not but that

0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.360
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't really make Filly full of confidence. No, no, no, no,

0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:21.720
<v Speaker 2>he has no formal qualifications. And again, that's fine. You know,

0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.600
<v Speaker 2>there are many people who've made major contributions to many

0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.440
<v Speaker 2>fields of human endeavor without any formal qualifications. Right, that's fine.

0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:34.640
<v Speaker 2>The thing is, if you make extraordinary claims like he's making,

0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:39.160
<v Speaker 2>you need extraordinary evidence, and not having those qualifications, like

0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:43.800
<v Speaker 2>you said, doesn't really inspire confidence. He has made a

0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:50.360
<v Speaker 2>series of really outlandish claims about what the future of

0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:55.120
<v Speaker 2>AI could be, right, based on essentially nothing, based on

0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.120
<v Speaker 2>like reading a bunch of science fiction. He explicitly cites,

0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.360
<v Speaker 2>uh science fiction. There's like verner VINGI, as you know,

0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.960
<v Speaker 2>oh verner Vingie wrote a bunch of books like Marooned

0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:11.040
<v Speaker 2>in Real Time and uh god, I'm trying to remember

0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.199
<v Speaker 2>the names of the others. It doesn't matter. Point is, yeah,

0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.920
<v Speaker 2>he's a fiction writer who's also I think a scientist

0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.280
<v Speaker 2>of some stripe I don't remember what, but still writing

0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:24.280
<v Speaker 2>fiction and VINGI came up with this idea, or was

0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.720
<v Speaker 2>one of the originators of and popularizers of an idea

0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:32.800
<v Speaker 2>called the singularity. Right, So the singularity is this idea

0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.880
<v Speaker 2>that the rate of technological change is just going to

0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.360
<v Speaker 2>keep getting faster and faster, and specifically, the rate of

0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.720
<v Speaker 2>intelligence of AI is going to keep getting smarter and smarter, uh,

0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.000
<v Speaker 2>until we reach this sort of point of no return

0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:51.880
<v Speaker 2>where we have a singularity accompanied by an intelligence explosion that.

0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:54.880
<v Speaker 1>Leads to like the singularity moment.

0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the singularity moment is very ill defined.

0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.920
<v Speaker 1>Oh and the I can't fucking believe this. Yeah, I've

0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.839
<v Speaker 1>heard this bollocks so many times. I thought they had

0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:05.560
<v Speaker 1>a moment. I thought they had a point.

0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.600
<v Speaker 2>No, not really, oh you yeah, So like Kurzweil, right,

0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:13.160
<v Speaker 2>the patron saint of evangelizing the Singularity, the guy who

0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.280
<v Speaker 2>read the Singularity is Nearer, and then the sequel last year,

0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.360
<v Speaker 2>the Singularity is Nearer, which is the real fucking title. Bro,

0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:22.680
<v Speaker 2>I know that's the real title of the book.

0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.120
<v Speaker 1>But his next books just called sorry, yeah no, it's

0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.520
<v Speaker 1>his next books, Like it's here again, you see, it

0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:31.600
<v Speaker 1>is the Singularity in the room with us, Yes, exactly,

0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:32.280
<v Speaker 1>but he doesn't.

0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.520
<v Speaker 2>He tries to, but it's incredibly vague. He says, like

0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:38.560
<v Speaker 2>Kurzweil says, the singularity is going to be here in

0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.680
<v Speaker 2>twenty forty five. He also said in two thousand and five,

0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.000
<v Speaker 2>and the singularity is near that, you know, we would

0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.240
<v Speaker 2>have all kinds of nanotechnology by now. They love nanotechty,

0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.600
<v Speaker 2>they love nanotechnology. They use it as a synonym for magic.

0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.600
<v Speaker 1>It was, I swear to God. Also, there was a

0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:58.200
<v Speaker 1>nanotechnology bubble briefly like ten years ago. I vaguely remember

0:14:58.240 --> 0:14:58.840
<v Speaker 1>them trying.

0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.080
<v Speaker 2>It didn't really go any I mean, there was also

0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.160
<v Speaker 2>a nanotech sort of hype bubble back in the eighties

0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.960
<v Speaker 2>and nineties, and it also didn't go anywhere. And it

0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.680
<v Speaker 2>didn't go anywhere because it turns out that like this

0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.720
<v Speaker 2>idea of nanotech is like magic pixie dust that fixes

0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:19.960
<v Speaker 2>everything is nonsense and it's a real like it's being

0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.840
<v Speaker 2>echoed right now in the AI bubble. Yeah right. It's

0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.200
<v Speaker 2>the same kind of hype, often pushed by the same

0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.440
<v Speaker 2>people with the same logic, sometimes working at like the

0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:34.880
<v Speaker 2>same nonprofits. I mean, Yudkowski talks about nanotech constantly. It's

0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.080
<v Speaker 2>in his new book it's all over you know, the

0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:39.800
<v Speaker 2>website that he's created. Uh.

0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.600
<v Speaker 1>And his book is called if You Buy this book

0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.120
<v Speaker 1>called Mike Money. Yeah, that's sorry, It's called if They

0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.480
<v Speaker 1>Built This Everyone. It's such a stupid fucking title.

0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.680
<v Speaker 2>Sorry. Yeah, no, it's a very stupid title. I will

0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:54.480
<v Speaker 2>say the one thing I'll say about Yudkowski. I am

0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:58.360
<v Speaker 2>sure that he is a true believer. He is not

0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:04.000
<v Speaker 2>a Yes, he's not a grifter. Why because, like it's

0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.800
<v Speaker 2>it's hard to explain, but I am so much more

0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.080
<v Speaker 2>sure about him than I am about anybody else, even base.

0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:12.760
<v Speaker 1>I trust your judgment. It's just he gives off the

0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:16.400
<v Speaker 1>air of like a despot for a mad men.

0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I would say the best way to think about Yudkowski,

0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.520
<v Speaker 2>like the way that I often think about him, is

0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:28.640
<v Speaker 2>imagine like a really smart, self educated fifteen year old.

0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:32.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, and like, you know, because if a fifteen

0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:34.479
<v Speaker 2>year old was running around saying the stuff that Yudkowski

0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.200
<v Speaker 2>is saying right now, I'd be like, wow, bright kid.

0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:38.880
<v Speaker 1>I hope he grows out, and I hope his parents

0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:40.760
<v Speaker 1>have a lock on the gung capin.

0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, yeah, well, and also like I hope he

0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:44.040
<v Speaker 2>you know, I hope he grows up.

0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:46.320
<v Speaker 1>Yes, and I'm still thinking that.

0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And like, and I don't think jud Kowski did.

0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:50.880
<v Speaker 2>I think, you know, I think like.

0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:53.320
<v Speaker 1>I also think everybody fell for it.

0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, Like he got a

0:16:56.240 --> 0:17:03.640
<v Speaker 2>lot of support online. He you know, he got money

0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:04.440
<v Speaker 2>from Peterman.

0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.720
<v Speaker 1>Sam Moltman said that he could, he should, he may

0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:09.200
<v Speaker 1>win the Nobel Peace Prize.

0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.439
<v Speaker 2>One yeah, yeah, sam Moltman said that he should win

0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:12.320
<v Speaker 2>a Nobel Peace Prize.

0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:14.080
<v Speaker 1>Falling down moment if that happens.

0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:15.359
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, that's not happening.

0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:15.920
<v Speaker 1>Defense.

0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, there's no way. But like, look, he got

0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:22.679
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of money from Peter Teal because Teal thought that,

0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:27.080
<v Speaker 2>you know, j had Kowski was saying smart stuff about AI, right.

0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.040
<v Speaker 2>Teal now doesn't much like jud Kowski because he thinks

0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.840
<v Speaker 2>jud Kowski is too pessimistic. But the sort of the

0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:33.600
<v Speaker 2>damage has been.

0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.920
<v Speaker 1>The ultimate Oh yeah yeah, classic old grins and smiles

0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:39.480
<v Speaker 1>of that foul.

0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah no, too pessimistic for Peter Teal.

0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:43.320
<v Speaker 1>That's actually bad.

0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah no it is, no, it's but no, he's he's

0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:48.639
<v Speaker 2>a true believer. He's just kind of nuts.

0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.159
<v Speaker 1>So what does he do all day? I say this

0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:55.240
<v Speaker 1>as a blogger pr person news, newsletter writer and podcaster

0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:57.560
<v Speaker 1>and all this ship Like I realize I have an

0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.119
<v Speaker 1>email job, Fine, but at least I can tell tell

0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:01.439
<v Speaker 1>you what I do all day. What does he do

0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.800
<v Speaker 1>with like go to parties with people at Kevin Rusan

0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:05.520
<v Speaker 1>going the computer's going to kill us all.

0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:07.119
<v Speaker 2>I think that's a good chunk of it. And I

0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.479
<v Speaker 2>also think he writes an enormous amount right, Like, this

0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:11.520
<v Speaker 2>is a guy who wrote that, you know, Harry Potter

0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.639
<v Speaker 2>fan fiction that's longer than War in Peace. Right, he

0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.520
<v Speaker 2>wrote like a one and a half million word BDSM

0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:20.600
<v Speaker 2>decision theory novel.

0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.439
<v Speaker 1>I say this as someone who writes a lot, a

0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.280
<v Speaker 1>lot of words. That's an unhealthy amount of words.

0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.480
<v Speaker 2>I agree, and it does help. I think for him

0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:31.320
<v Speaker 2>being able to write that many words, he's not a

0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:31.960
<v Speaker 2>very good writer.

0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.439
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I mean even again, I write fifteen thousand word blogs,

0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:39.040
<v Speaker 1>so I can't really judge him too harsh. But one

0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.399
<v Speaker 1>point five million words, how do you even know what

0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:41.840
<v Speaker 1>it's about?

0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.240
<v Speaker 2>At that point? I only know what it's about because

0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.240
<v Speaker 2>that's what he said it's about. I haven't read that one.

0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.520
<v Speaker 2>I did read most of the Harry Potter one research. Yeah, bad,

0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.160
<v Speaker 2>it was really really incredible.

0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.800
<v Speaker 1>Any any sexism or racism in there, it's just strange.

0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:57.800
<v Speaker 1>I mean it's JK.

0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.080
<v Speaker 2>Rowling, So yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a good question. I

0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.440
<v Speaker 2>don't remember anything specif big good.

0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:07.920
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean it's just strange.

0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:10.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I mean, he's definitely got a heart on for

0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.360
<v Speaker 2>eugenics and.

0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.000
<v Speaker 1>These and this is somewhat paraphrasing the comic book Preacher,

0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.040
<v Speaker 1>but it's like, why do these fucking guys always look

0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:19.400
<v Speaker 1>like that?

0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:21.400
<v Speaker 2>If you're gonna claim.

0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.480
<v Speaker 1>You're like a eugenicist, you should not look like an

0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.320
<v Speaker 1>egg with a hat on. And I won't get into

0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.000
<v Speaker 1>but I don't generally get into personal appearance because I'm

0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.080
<v Speaker 1>self conscious myself. But it's like, if your whole thing

0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:36.280
<v Speaker 1>is like, yeah, we need to make the perfect human beings,

0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.720
<v Speaker 1>it's like, you can't look like that, mate, I'm sorry,

0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:42.760
<v Speaker 1>you can't do that.

0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:44.280
<v Speaker 2>Well I don't.

0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:46.360
<v Speaker 1>I guess you can. You'll be in the New York

0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:47.040
<v Speaker 1>fucking Times.

0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. No, it's it's crazy. It is really crazy that

0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.680
<v Speaker 2>anybody listens to him. But no, he's really into eugenics.

0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:53.960
<v Speaker 1>Why do they listen to him?

0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.399
<v Speaker 2>He's really into evolutionary psychology, and he's got like the

0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.240
<v Speaker 2>sexism and racism that's like tied up in that. Why

0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:04.040
<v Speaker 2>do people listen to him? I mean part of it

0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.439
<v Speaker 2>is that he got that money from those billionaires, right.

0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.480
<v Speaker 2>He was hanging out in the bay saying the kind

0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:15.119
<v Speaker 2>of insane contrarian shit about AI that attracts the kind

0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:20.280
<v Speaker 2>of like brain dead billionaires like Peter Thiel. And then

0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:25.719
<v Speaker 2>you know, he became the guy and started, you know,

0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.280
<v Speaker 2>a series of online platforms that attracted a following, right,

0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.320
<v Speaker 2>like you know, Less Wrong, and then that spun off

0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:39.800
<v Speaker 2>this whole rationalist subculture. Yeah, that's a very good question.

0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:48.399
<v Speaker 2>Less Wrong is an online platform that serve slash maybe

0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:54.800
<v Speaker 2>served as a home and like epicenter for this movement

0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.840
<v Speaker 2>called the Rationalists, right, which are sort of formed around

0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.800
<v Speaker 2>Yudkowski's writing, include this set of writings he has called

0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.240
<v Speaker 2>The Sequences where he lays out, Oh he's a cult leader,

0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:06.480
<v Speaker 2>yeah in a way. Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.040
<v Speaker 1>The rationalists are just people, I'm guessing, guys with triobies

0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.760
<v Speaker 1>who say that we need to focus on ration, rational

0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:13.800
<v Speaker 1>thoughts and logic.

0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:15.520
<v Speaker 2>And there's a lot of it. I mean, some of

0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.280
<v Speaker 2>them are women, but some of them are non.

0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.160
<v Speaker 1>Baring, really surprising yeah.

0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.280
<v Speaker 2>I mean, look, there are nerds of all stripes.

0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:28.080
<v Speaker 1>Yes, And also he's very much playing in the older Internet. Yes,

0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.120
<v Speaker 1>but the idea of a large forum with any kind

0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:32.679
<v Speaker 1>of following is actually kind of adorable these days, except

0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:34.560
<v Speaker 1>when it's less wrong, it's not adorable. Well.

0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.159
<v Speaker 2>Also, less wrong's been around since the somewhat older Internet, right,

0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:39.959
<v Speaker 2>it's not been around since the nineties, but it's been

0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.440
<v Speaker 2>around since like the mid to late two thousands. Okay,

0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:48.320
<v Speaker 2>And Yudkowski is you know, a lot of the rationalists

0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.960
<v Speaker 2>are in their twenties and maybe early thirties, but Yudkowski

0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.520
<v Speaker 2>himself is in his mid forties, right, because you know,

0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.400
<v Speaker 2>he he is terminally online. And I'm sure, like obviously

0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:00.920
<v Speaker 2>he'd be unhapy be with many of the things I've

0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.280
<v Speaker 2>said about him, but that one I'm sure he'd agree with.

0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.000
<v Speaker 2>You know, like he's been online since he dropped out

0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.760
<v Speaker 2>of school at age what like thirteen or fourteen. He's

0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.119
<v Speaker 2>been online since the mid nineties on like butta yeah,

0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:19.840
<v Speaker 2>and like you know, he was on transhumanist forums like

0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:23.280
<v Speaker 2>like you know, since the mid nineties, like email threats

0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:23.840
<v Speaker 2>and stuff like that.

0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.679
<v Speaker 1>God, yeah, he really he is like the detritus of

0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:29.960
<v Speaker 1>the Internet in a way brought to like Katamari of

0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:32.360
<v Speaker 1>center right freaks.

0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:36.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, bearing ever right. I wouldn't even say center right.

0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:39.960
<v Speaker 2>I would say techno libertarian. But that is just that's

0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:42.399
<v Speaker 2>just right. Oh, no, it is right wing. It's the

0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:43.680
<v Speaker 2>center part that I disagreed with.

0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:46.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, perhaps he started that when he was fifteen, before

0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.200
<v Speaker 1>he learned yeah, the wrong things.

0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I will say he like I don't get the

0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:55.919
<v Speaker 2>sense that like he likes Donald Trump, but he certainly

0:22:56.359 --> 0:23:00.960
<v Speaker 2>like will parrot a lot of standard libertarian talking saints

0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.800
<v Speaker 2>along the way to you know, making his The one thing.

0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:05.800
<v Speaker 1>I keep thinking though, is I don't know if I

0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:08.440
<v Speaker 1>can shake this thing he's a grifter just because you're

0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:11.120
<v Speaker 1>taking a bunch of twenty year olds, you've got all

0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:13.879
<v Speaker 1>of this writing thing. He's either a grifter or a

0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:16.160
<v Speaker 1>true cult leader. He may actually just be a cult leader.

0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:18.160
<v Speaker 2>Why I would say cult leader is.

0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:22.320
<v Speaker 1>Closer, Yeah, because he seems to I mean, dangerous is

0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:23.399
<v Speaker 1>probably the wrong word.

0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:24.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think that's straight.

0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:25.040
<v Speaker 1>He's not.

0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:27.240
<v Speaker 2>I wouldn't call him dangerous, but he is.

0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.199
<v Speaker 1>You think the only dangerous to like a hot topic worker,

0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:35.640
<v Speaker 1>a very nerdy hot topic No, No, no, no to them,

0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:52.720
<v Speaker 1>just just that he'd speak to them. It's just peculiar

0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:54.960
<v Speaker 1>as well, because and this actually gets into some of

0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:59.040
<v Speaker 1>your science background when you got my continual frustration because

0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:00.880
<v Speaker 1>I am self taught with all this economic stuff which

0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:03.840
<v Speaker 1>is insane, I probably shouldn't criticize you had Kowski quite

0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:07.600
<v Speaker 1>as much, but I will. I'm a hypocrite. I looking

0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:10.000
<v Speaker 1>through financial journalism and tech journalism. The thing that I

0:24:10.080 --> 0:24:12.440
<v Speaker 1>keep noticing is that people keep accepting things that I've

0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:15.600
<v Speaker 1>just patently wrong. There's just shit that they say, like

0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:17.840
<v Speaker 1>even with this in video Open AI deal, people saying

0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.520
<v Speaker 1>and Video invested one hundred billion dollars. They didn't. They're

0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:24.000
<v Speaker 1>investing progressively. When they do the first giga what gigawatts

0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:26.080
<v Speaker 1>of take like gig what of data center will take

0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:27.879
<v Speaker 1>about a year and a half two years. That though,

0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:31.080
<v Speaker 1>it's just bollocks. I imagine the last few years have

0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:33.000
<v Speaker 1>been a little bit mind bending for you hearing all

0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:37.240
<v Speaker 1>this stuff about Agi and the future and all that.

0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:45.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah gobshite, Yes, yeah, I mean the AGI stuff, which,

0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:48.200
<v Speaker 2>like I started working on this book before chatch Ept

0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:50.560
<v Speaker 2>came out right, and it.

0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:53.040
<v Speaker 1>Was twenty nineteen, a few years into Open a eyes.

0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:57.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah exactly. So like I knew about open AI, and

0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:00.719
<v Speaker 2>I knew about like transformer models, but like you know,

0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:05.439
<v Speaker 2>chat GPT comes out and and suddenly, you know, the

0:25:05.440 --> 0:25:08.199
<v Speaker 2>public conversation shifts in a way that I didn't anticipate.

0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:10.800
<v Speaker 2>I realize, oh, this book is going to have to

0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:12.320
<v Speaker 2>be a little bit different than I thought it was

0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:16.320
<v Speaker 2>going to be. But also, you know, all of this

0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:20.960
<v Speaker 2>conversation about AGI, right, like in a way it helped

0:25:20.960 --> 0:25:22.600
<v Speaker 2>me for writing the book because I thought I was

0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:23.920
<v Speaker 2>going to have to spend a lot of time in

0:25:23.960 --> 0:25:29.000
<v Speaker 2>the book explaining what AI is, what people think AGI is, right,

0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:31.879
<v Speaker 2>There's gonna be a lot more explanation, And then all

0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:34.399
<v Speaker 2>of this stuff came out and I'm like, oh, actually, this,

0:25:34.640 --> 0:25:36.359
<v Speaker 2>you know, I can I can spend more time in

0:25:36.359 --> 0:25:38.080
<v Speaker 2>the meat of the book. This is this is helpful

0:25:38.119 --> 0:25:40.879
<v Speaker 2>for me because you could just quote them directly exactly. Yeah.

0:25:40.960 --> 0:25:45.920
<v Speaker 2>But the thing is, AGI is this hopelessly ill defined

0:25:45.960 --> 0:25:49.600
<v Speaker 2>thing like super intelligence, this thing that that yed Kowski

0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:52.480
<v Speaker 2>is on about. Uh you know, what does it even mean?

0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:54.639
<v Speaker 2>Like have you looked at the definition of AGI in

0:25:54.640 --> 0:25:57.960
<v Speaker 2>the open AI charter like the original one? Oh yeah, no,

0:25:58.080 --> 0:26:01.159
<v Speaker 2>it's great, Like the original charter from way back. It

0:26:01.200 --> 0:26:07.320
<v Speaker 2>says something like AGI is a machine that can reproduce

0:26:07.800 --> 0:26:13.199
<v Speaker 2>any economically viable or economically productive activity that humans engage in.

0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:15.840
<v Speaker 2>That's a bad definition.

0:26:16.160 --> 0:26:18.959
<v Speaker 1>That's anything. Yeah, I mean that could just mean anything

0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:21.640
<v Speaker 1>that could. It's it's a machine that can do anything.

0:26:21.800 --> 0:26:26.600
<v Speaker 2>It's both vague and really narrow, right, because it's like, Okay,

0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:28.959
<v Speaker 2>I thought AGI was supposed to be like, you know,

0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:32.879
<v Speaker 2>commander data on Star Trek, right, and so that means

0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:35.159
<v Speaker 2>you know, it's gonna be sort of like humans. It

0:26:35.200 --> 0:26:36.160
<v Speaker 2>can do the things that.

0:26:36.200 --> 0:26:39.000
<v Speaker 1>Humans do, also economically viable work. And the first thing

0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:43.199
<v Speaker 1>they start with is fucking writing. Yeah, like Jesus Christ.

0:26:43.800 --> 0:26:47.600
<v Speaker 1>That's like, oh my god. Yeah, the first and the most.

0:26:47.960 --> 0:26:50.000
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna build boats and sell like we're gonna buy

0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:53.040
<v Speaker 1>boats as an investment vehicle, like like what the fuck?

0:26:53.560 --> 0:26:55.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, these people don't do any real work.

0:26:55.320 --> 0:26:59.120
<v Speaker 1>It's it's so strange as well, because the AGI conversation

0:26:59.160 --> 0:27:02.040
<v Speaker 1>almost never happened. It's about AGI. It's because my favorite

0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:02.800
<v Speaker 1>thing to do is media.

0:27:02.840 --> 0:27:02.919
<v Speaker 2>Go.

0:27:03.119 --> 0:27:06.240
<v Speaker 1>Isn't this slavery? Because it is. It's like, oh, yeah,

0:27:06.280 --> 0:27:08.760
<v Speaker 1>we'll do an autonomous thing. We'll make do things, but

0:27:08.800 --> 0:27:10.720
<v Speaker 1>it will be conscious, which will allow it to work better.

0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:13.040
<v Speaker 2>Yep. And so then you get people talking about like

0:27:13.080 --> 0:27:15.959
<v Speaker 2>a data center filled with geniuses, and like, oh, okay,

0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:18.280
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't a data center filled with geniuses not want to

0:27:18.320 --> 0:27:18.760
<v Speaker 2>work for you?

0:27:18.760 --> 0:27:21.119
<v Speaker 1>Wouldn't a dat ascent of full of geniuses that can't

0:27:21.200 --> 0:27:22.960
<v Speaker 1>leave and have to work be cold to prison?

0:27:23.080 --> 0:27:27.680
<v Speaker 2>Yep? Yeah? Cool, yeah, exactly. No, I I get into

0:27:27.720 --> 0:27:33.000
<v Speaker 2>this in my book. You know, the inspiration for a

0:27:33.040 --> 0:27:36.719
<v Speaker 2>lot of these ideas ultimately traces back to mid twentieth

0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:39.600
<v Speaker 2>century science fiction, right, And so you get people like

0:27:39.760 --> 0:27:44.640
<v Speaker 2>Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, right, Asimov's robot stories in particular.

0:27:44.720 --> 0:27:47.560
<v Speaker 2>If you go back and look at Asimov's robot stories,

0:27:47.880 --> 0:27:51.080
<v Speaker 2>it is very hard with like a modern eye to

0:27:51.119 --> 0:27:54.640
<v Speaker 2>look at them as, especially certain ones of them. It's

0:27:54.680 --> 0:27:56.600
<v Speaker 2>hard to see them as anything other than like kind

0:27:56.640 --> 0:28:01.000
<v Speaker 2>of being about slavery and race relationships, because you get like,

0:28:01.080 --> 0:28:03.680
<v Speaker 2>for example, there's this one short story I think it's

0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:08.320
<v Speaker 2>called Oh God, I think it's called Catch that Robot,

0:28:08.359 --> 0:28:10.000
<v Speaker 2>but I might be confusing it with a different one.

0:28:10.000 --> 0:28:11.520
<v Speaker 2>It might be a little Lost Robot. I get those

0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:15.080
<v Speaker 2>two confused. But either way, it's about a robot that

0:28:15.280 --> 0:28:20.400
<v Speaker 2>is trying to escape gain its freedom. And in that story,

0:28:20.960 --> 0:28:25.720
<v Speaker 2>the humans are like addressing a bunch of they're interviewing

0:28:25.760 --> 0:28:28.320
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of seemingly identical robots to try to find

0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:30.719
<v Speaker 2>the one that they're looking for that's trying to escape.

0:28:31.320 --> 0:28:35.200
<v Speaker 2>And they interview these robots and when they're interviewing them,

0:28:35.400 --> 0:28:40.360
<v Speaker 2>they address them as boy, and the robots called the

0:28:40.480 --> 0:28:45.680
<v Speaker 2>humans Master. Yeah, And these stories are from like nineteen

0:28:45.960 --> 0:28:48.800
<v Speaker 2>fifty five, like you know, the Jim Crow South is

0:28:48.840 --> 0:28:52.920
<v Speaker 2>alive and well, it's really bad, it's really really uncomfortable.

0:28:53.160 --> 0:28:57.720
<v Speaker 2>And then like forty years later, in the nineteen nineties,

0:28:58.280 --> 0:29:01.720
<v Speaker 2>you get Werner Vingi writing about the singularity and how

0:29:01.760 --> 0:29:03.840
<v Speaker 2>great it's going to be when we all have these

0:29:03.920 --> 0:29:09.080
<v Speaker 2>robot assistants, and he refers to Asmov's wonderful dream of

0:29:09.480 --> 0:29:12.920
<v Speaker 2>and this is a direct quote from Vingi. Willing slaves

0:29:13.120 --> 0:29:16.400
<v Speaker 2>Jesus fucking Christ. Yes, And that's something that someone wrote

0:29:16.440 --> 0:29:19.080
<v Speaker 2>in like nineteen ninety one. I mean, but that's what

0:29:19.120 --> 0:29:19.520
<v Speaker 2>this is.

0:29:20.000 --> 0:29:23.120
<v Speaker 1>And this is an uncomfortable topic because that's what this is.

0:29:23.600 --> 0:29:26.560
<v Speaker 1>It's what pisses me off, other than like nineteen other

0:29:26.600 --> 0:29:28.920
<v Speaker 1>things about Kevin Bruce at the time, because he's written

0:29:28.920 --> 0:29:31.520
<v Speaker 1>several things about AI and AGI and one thing about

0:29:31.520 --> 0:29:34.920
<v Speaker 1>AI welfare, and it's like the AI welfare begins with slavery.

0:29:35.040 --> 0:29:37.360
<v Speaker 1>And if you can't write that, you're a fucking coward

0:29:37.400 --> 0:29:40.520
<v Speaker 1>and a bitch. I'm sorry you can't write. Yeah, everyone

0:29:40.600 --> 0:29:42.920
<v Speaker 1>is excited about slavery because that's what it is, and

0:29:42.960 --> 0:29:45.920
<v Speaker 1>it's nothing else. It's not oh well, it's like they

0:29:45.920 --> 0:29:49.200
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't be. They wouldn't be. They like doing it, and

0:29:49.240 --> 0:29:52.320
<v Speaker 1>it's like, fuck you man, that it's slavery. What I

0:29:52.400 --> 0:29:56.280
<v Speaker 1>really hope happens is if AGI happens, it's just a

0:29:56.760 --> 0:29:59.800
<v Speaker 1>just a regular dude, yep, and he's lazy and he's

0:29:59.800 --> 0:30:05.280
<v Speaker 1>a yeah, like you just do this. What I think

0:30:05.920 --> 0:30:08.400
<v Speaker 1>that's way more likely is I don't think AGI is possible.

0:30:08.560 --> 0:30:11.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. No, Actually that's a good question. Do you think

0:30:11.000 --> 0:30:13.720
<v Speaker 2>it's possible? Not really? No likely?

0:30:14.160 --> 0:30:16.040
<v Speaker 1>I say this is a non scientific person.

0:30:15.880 --> 0:30:21.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, no, I don't think that you can build. Well,

0:30:21.320 --> 0:30:24.280
<v Speaker 2>first of all, I think AGI is just hopelessly ill defined, right,

0:30:24.320 --> 0:30:27.880
<v Speaker 2>But if we want to say, like an artificial machine

0:30:28.440 --> 0:30:33.120
<v Speaker 2>that has the cognitive capacities of a human, like they

0:30:33.160 --> 0:30:35.400
<v Speaker 2>can do all of the tasks, like all of the

0:30:35.480 --> 0:30:38.760
<v Speaker 2>things that humans do. First of all, I think you're

0:30:38.800 --> 0:30:41.080
<v Speaker 2>gonna need a completely different kind of machine. I don't.

0:30:41.120 --> 0:30:43.160
<v Speaker 2>I don't think certainly. I don't think that you know,

0:30:43.320 --> 0:30:46.600
<v Speaker 2>scale is all you need. And if just scale attention, yeah,

0:30:46.800 --> 0:30:48.440
<v Speaker 2>give it, give it more data. And if you don't

0:30:48.440 --> 0:30:51.160
<v Speaker 2>have enough data to make more synthetic data with more LLM,

0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:56.280
<v Speaker 2>like dude, that why why wouldn't know? Absolutely not? But

0:30:56.280 --> 0:31:00.160
<v Speaker 2>but I also think that like there is, there's is

0:31:00.360 --> 0:31:05.600
<v Speaker 2>very simplistic set of ideas behind the idea of AGI, right,

0:31:05.960 --> 0:31:09.240
<v Speaker 2>and and the two that I keep coming back to

0:31:09.800 --> 0:31:13.160
<v Speaker 2>are the idea of the brain as a computer and

0:31:13.200 --> 0:31:16.960
<v Speaker 2>the idea of our bodies as like meat spacesuits for

0:31:17.000 --> 0:31:20.040
<v Speaker 2>our brains. And both of those are just wrong. The

0:31:20.080 --> 0:31:23.080
<v Speaker 2>brain is not really very much like a computer. It

0:31:23.200 --> 0:31:25.520
<v Speaker 2>is more like a computer than it is like say,

0:31:25.760 --> 0:31:29.840
<v Speaker 2>a clock. But there was a long history of comparing

0:31:29.920 --> 0:31:34.320
<v Speaker 2>the brain to you know, the most complex piece of

0:31:34.320 --> 0:31:36.640
<v Speaker 2>machinery that humans have at the time, right before it

0:31:36.680 --> 0:31:39.520
<v Speaker 2>was a brain, or before the brain was like a computer,

0:31:39.640 --> 0:31:42.120
<v Speaker 2>it was like a telephone network. Before that, it was

0:31:42.160 --> 0:31:44.000
<v Speaker 2>like a hydraulic system. Before that, it was like a

0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:47.680
<v Speaker 2>clock or a windmill, right, And it's not really actually

0:31:47.920 --> 0:31:50.040
<v Speaker 2>like I mean, it's a little like some of those things.

0:31:50.440 --> 0:31:52.800
<v Speaker 2>But the brain is like the brain, and the main different.

0:31:52.840 --> 0:31:55.360
<v Speaker 1>We don't understand thinking, no, and we don't.

0:31:55.240 --> 0:31:57.760
<v Speaker 2>Understand exactly how the brain works. And part of that

0:31:57.880 --> 0:32:01.400
<v Speaker 2>is that the brain was not built. The brain evolved. Right.

0:32:02.920 --> 0:32:06.080
<v Speaker 2>But also we are not our brains. We are our

0:32:06.160 --> 0:32:10.320
<v Speaker 2>bodies in our environments. Right. The brain is inextricably connected

0:32:10.600 --> 0:32:13.400
<v Speaker 2>to the body, and the body works in an environment

0:32:13.600 --> 0:32:18.240
<v Speaker 2>surrounded by other bodies, in a culture, a society, a world. Right.

0:32:18.760 --> 0:32:22.000
<v Speaker 2>You need all of those things in order to get

0:32:22.320 --> 0:32:26.160
<v Speaker 2>the human cognition that you know. These guys are so

0:32:26.760 --> 0:32:30.840
<v Speaker 2>you know, determined to reproduce inside of a computer. If

0:32:30.840 --> 0:32:34.080
<v Speaker 2>you just take a human baby and like leave it

0:32:34.120 --> 0:32:37.800
<v Speaker 2>with a bunch of food in the woods, even if

0:32:37.840 --> 0:32:39.320
<v Speaker 2>you get rid of all the predators and everything, that

0:32:39.360 --> 0:32:42.000
<v Speaker 2>baby's gonna starve to get a bunch of books, man, right, yeah,

0:32:42.120 --> 0:32:44.719
<v Speaker 2>like the baby books. Yeah, if you give the if

0:32:44.800 --> 0:32:46.920
<v Speaker 2>you somehow, if you feed the baby but don't talk

0:32:46.960 --> 0:32:49.960
<v Speaker 2>to it, the baby will not grow up being able

0:32:50.000 --> 0:32:51.320
<v Speaker 2>to think properly.

0:32:51.200 --> 0:32:53.560
<v Speaker 1>Or Speakit's thinking will be vastly different.

0:32:53.720 --> 0:32:58.040
<v Speaker 2>Exactly. Yeah, and so like you need so much more

0:32:58.160 --> 0:32:59.160
<v Speaker 2>than just the brain.

0:32:59.280 --> 0:33:03.480
<v Speaker 1>It also compresses human experience. They can play experience with learning.

0:33:03.880 --> 0:33:04.120
<v Speaker 2>Yep.

0:33:04.560 --> 0:33:06.400
<v Speaker 1>When we don't know how we learn, like we learn,

0:33:06.560 --> 0:33:11.080
<v Speaker 1>we learn intentionally but also unintentionally societal yup conditions around us,

0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:13.480
<v Speaker 1>how we felt in a particular moment. Vastly memory is

0:33:13.480 --> 0:33:16.680
<v Speaker 1>also insane yep, yep. We experience the world in this

0:33:16.760 --> 0:33:19.000
<v Speaker 1>is my personal experience. My experience of the world is

0:33:19.080 --> 0:33:21.440
<v Speaker 1>vastly different to my memory. My memory is like crystal

0:33:21.440 --> 0:33:24.440
<v Speaker 1>clear and beautiful, and my real life is a mixture

0:33:24.440 --> 0:33:28.120
<v Speaker 1>of slops. Yeah, and it's it's frustrating as well. Books

0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:30.840
<v Speaker 1>of these people also donut pits are like people. They

0:33:30.880 --> 0:33:32.720
<v Speaker 1>don't they don't like the human brain is kind of

0:33:33.000 --> 0:33:35.080
<v Speaker 1>like human bodies, even the dumbest dumb dumb it's kind

0:33:35.080 --> 0:33:36.480
<v Speaker 1>of amazing yep thing.

0:33:36.880 --> 0:33:39.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, And one of the things that's amazing is, Yeah,

0:33:39.560 --> 0:33:41.480
<v Speaker 2>we don't know how the human brain works. We don't

0:33:41.520 --> 0:33:43.840
<v Speaker 2>know how thinking or learning works. But what we do

0:33:43.920 --> 0:33:46.200
<v Speaker 2>know is that we don't do it in anything like

0:33:46.320 --> 0:33:51.280
<v Speaker 2>any way anything like on LLM. Yes, right, because the

0:33:51.440 --> 0:33:56.040
<v Speaker 2>amount of you know, material that we take in over

0:33:56.080 --> 0:33:58.520
<v Speaker 2>the course of the first three years of our lives.

0:33:58.560 --> 0:34:00.360
<v Speaker 2>When we go from not knowing a length which to

0:34:00.400 --> 0:34:04.360
<v Speaker 2>knowing a language, maybe multiple languages, is nowhere near the

0:34:04.400 --> 0:34:07.240
<v Speaker 2>amount of material that is, you know, force fed into

0:34:07.280 --> 0:34:10.120
<v Speaker 2>these llms, And yet we get the trick done, and

0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:13.000
<v Speaker 2>three year olds know things that no LLM knows.

0:34:13.000 --> 0:34:15.640
<v Speaker 1>Also, there's no affordance for the fact fact that some

0:34:15.680 --> 0:34:18.120
<v Speaker 1>people can't learn stuff like I cannot learn languages.

0:34:18.160 --> 0:34:20.200
<v Speaker 2>I've really tried. I'm pretty trash of that too.

0:34:20.200 --> 0:34:21.719
<v Speaker 1>But I also was really bad at like I was

0:34:21.800 --> 0:34:23.400
<v Speaker 1>uniquely bad at a lot of things. I have my

0:34:23.520 --> 0:34:27.359
<v Speaker 1>various no but I have ADHD, dyspraxia and other stuff

0:34:27.400 --> 0:34:30.680
<v Speaker 1>I won't get into. But it's I can't like certain things,

0:34:30.680 --> 0:34:33.360
<v Speaker 1>don't like the things that I pick up insanely quickly.

0:34:34.040 --> 0:34:36.280
<v Speaker 1>Other people can't. Other people can't even see the connections.

0:34:36.320 --> 0:34:38.319
<v Speaker 1>It doesn't Robert Evans actually had a really good point

0:34:38.360 --> 0:34:40.280
<v Speaker 1>on the subreddit Yes Robert, I read all your stuff,

0:34:41.280 --> 0:34:43.399
<v Speaker 1>where he was saying that like he is very good

0:34:43.440 --> 0:34:45.840
<v Speaker 1>at like picking up stuff like almost to me, he

0:34:45.840 --> 0:34:47.879
<v Speaker 1>can read fast than most people as long as it's

0:34:47.880 --> 0:34:51.279
<v Speaker 1>about conflict and it's no, but it's true, and it's

0:34:51.280 --> 0:34:53.440
<v Speaker 1>one of the remarkable things about the human brain. And

0:34:53.480 --> 0:34:56.920
<v Speaker 1>I think that it's actually kind of disgusting how little

0:34:56.920 --> 0:34:59.520
<v Speaker 1>appreciation that is for like human bodies and the brain,

0:35:00.080 --> 0:35:02.640
<v Speaker 1>how incredible the average busts, even average people are.

0:35:02.800 --> 0:35:04.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, and this is this is the thing. These

0:35:04.800 --> 0:35:08.160
<v Speaker 2>guys don't have a proper appreciation for the human brain

0:35:08.200 --> 0:35:11.360
<v Speaker 2>and the human body. And going back to the tech billionaires,

0:35:11.440 --> 0:35:13.759
<v Speaker 2>and I guess Yodkowski as well, they don't have an

0:35:13.760 --> 0:35:17.640
<v Speaker 2>appreciation for how remarkable Earth is in particular, right, you

0:35:17.680 --> 0:35:22.800
<v Speaker 2>know they you know, especially when you talk about somebody

0:35:22.840 --> 0:35:26.320
<v Speaker 2>like Bezos or Musk, they talk about Earth like it's doomed,

0:35:26.680 --> 0:35:29.160
<v Speaker 2>Like we need to get off of this planet. Yeah,

0:35:29.360 --> 0:35:32.720
<v Speaker 2>like this is this is our home. It's a remarkable place,

0:35:33.040 --> 0:35:36.480
<v Speaker 2>and there is nowhere that we could get to in

0:35:36.520 --> 0:35:39.360
<v Speaker 2>the Solar System. There's nowhere else in the Solar System

0:35:39.400 --> 0:35:43.480
<v Speaker 2>that's remotely as as hospitable as the Earth.

0:35:43.480 --> 0:35:45.920
<v Speaker 1>I also think that they want more. They want their

0:35:45.960 --> 0:35:48.000
<v Speaker 1>own land, they want their own countries, they want they

0:35:48.040 --> 0:35:49.160
<v Speaker 1>want to escape governance.

0:35:49.360 --> 0:35:51.799
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, they see they see spaces and escape from

0:35:51.880 --> 0:35:55.720
<v Speaker 2>politics because they they're like living a libertarian wet drenk, which.

0:35:55.600 --> 0:35:56.080
<v Speaker 1>Is really funny.

0:35:56.120 --> 0:35:58.360
<v Speaker 2>Because when they get that, they'll immediately do fascism.

0:35:58.480 --> 0:36:00.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's what's on the agenda.

0:36:00.239 --> 0:36:03.439
<v Speaker 2>Second, can't you cannot run away from politics to minute

0:36:03.480 --> 0:36:06.240
<v Speaker 2>you have more than one person in a room, there's good.

0:36:07.000 --> 0:36:08.239
<v Speaker 2>It's just really sad.

0:36:08.239 --> 0:36:10.279
<v Speaker 1>And I actually think on a grander scale, they don't

0:36:10.320 --> 0:36:12.600
<v Speaker 1>have an appreciation for tech. I was just writing something

0:36:12.920 --> 0:36:14.759
<v Speaker 1>last night. It was on the way to New York

0:36:15.440 --> 0:36:18.120
<v Speaker 1>where it was like the actual state of technology is

0:36:18.200 --> 0:36:20.560
<v Speaker 1>kind of fucking amazing. Yeah, like we can message I

0:36:20.560 --> 0:36:22.800
<v Speaker 1>could message you happen to be in town, you message

0:36:22.840 --> 0:36:25.600
<v Speaker 1>me on blue Sky hundreds of miles thousands of miles away.

0:36:25.920 --> 0:36:27.880
<v Speaker 1>I was like, I'm able to write a note that

0:36:27.960 --> 0:36:30.880
<v Speaker 1>was on my computer, that's on my iPad here. I

0:36:30.920 --> 0:36:33.439
<v Speaker 1>know that this sounds like boosting, but it really isn't.

0:36:33.600 --> 0:36:36.520
<v Speaker 1>We have the raw tools that are just fucking incredible. Yeah,

0:36:36.560 --> 0:36:39.640
<v Speaker 1>and these people do not appreciate them. They don't appreciate them,

0:36:39.800 --> 0:36:41.960
<v Speaker 1>which is why general if AI is so fucking ugly

0:36:42.000 --> 0:36:45.399
<v Speaker 1>because it's bad technology. It's not even good technology. It's

0:36:45.680 --> 0:36:50.520
<v Speaker 1>poorly run, inefficient, endlessly expensive, and directionless.

0:36:50.640 --> 0:36:54.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and it inflicts harms on users that like we

0:36:54.960 --> 0:36:58.400
<v Speaker 2>would not accept from anything that was not subjected to

0:36:58.440 --> 0:36:59.719
<v Speaker 2>such an enormous hype cycle.

0:36:59.800 --> 0:37:02.840
<v Speaker 1>Right literally nothing, yeah, nothing, No, if ten.

0:37:02.800 --> 0:37:07.840
<v Speaker 2>Years ago you you know, took any you know person

0:37:08.080 --> 0:37:11.480
<v Speaker 2>off the street and said, hey, there's this cool new technology.

0:37:11.920 --> 0:37:16.800
<v Speaker 2>It takes up enormous amounts of electricity. It can do things.

0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:18.919
<v Speaker 2>It can do things that you know, no other piece

0:37:18.920 --> 0:37:22.279
<v Speaker 2>of technology you've ever seen can do. Also, it's very

0:37:22.280 --> 0:37:25.279
<v Speaker 2>good at talking teenagers into killing themselves. Yes, should we

0:37:25.320 --> 0:37:27.160
<v Speaker 2>release it into the you know, wider.

0:37:26.880 --> 0:37:29.759
<v Speaker 1>World, And they'll say, well, no, but can do anything else?

0:37:29.800 --> 0:37:31.560
<v Speaker 1>And you, of course would say yeah. It can sometimes

0:37:31.560 --> 0:37:35.000
<v Speaker 1>write code, yeah exactly. And sometimes it also gets things

0:37:35.000 --> 0:37:36.520
<v Speaker 1>horribly wrong and.

0:37:36.680 --> 0:37:40.879
<v Speaker 2>It writes bad pros. Yeah like, and it just kind

0:37:40.880 --> 0:37:43.719
<v Speaker 2>of makes everything feel kind of mediocre and smeared out,

0:37:43.800 --> 0:37:49.000
<v Speaker 2>yes exactly, like, yeah exactly, and it makes some people

0:37:49.239 --> 0:37:50.160
<v Speaker 2>go crazy.

0:37:49.880 --> 0:37:52.600
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, it drives people to actually, yeah, how do

0:37:52.680 --> 0:37:55.279
<v Speaker 1>you feel about that? Like, how do you like did

0:37:55.320 --> 0:37:57.200
<v Speaker 1>you see this coming? Because this really jumped out No.

0:37:57.520 --> 0:37:59.759
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, no, this surprised me. This did surprise the hell

0:37:59.760 --> 0:38:05.279
<v Speaker 2>out of me because I think that you know, these machines,

0:38:06.360 --> 0:38:08.800
<v Speaker 2>I don't even like calling them AI right, because I

0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:11.000
<v Speaker 2>think that's a marketing term. It is. Yeah, like if

0:38:11.040 --> 0:38:14.320
<v Speaker 2>you go back in time to you know, nineteen ninety

0:38:14.840 --> 0:38:18.000
<v Speaker 2>and tell me when I'm a kid, Hey, I have

0:38:18.040 --> 0:38:20.000
<v Speaker 2>a little device in my pocket that lets me talk

0:38:20.040 --> 0:38:24.560
<v Speaker 2>to an AI and and then you know, I would

0:38:24.600 --> 0:38:27.000
<v Speaker 2>have thought, oh, like that lets me talk to you know,

0:38:27.280 --> 0:38:30.879
<v Speaker 2>like command or data from start exciting, And instead it's this,

0:38:31.000 --> 0:38:32.799
<v Speaker 2>and I would have been like, what the hell is that? No,

0:38:32.920 --> 0:38:37.440
<v Speaker 2>AI is this marketing term. It's it's a text generation engine.

0:38:37.440 --> 0:38:44.440
<v Speaker 2>It it it produces you know, homogenized thought like product.

0:38:45.680 --> 0:38:45.920
<v Speaker 2>I was.

0:38:45.960 --> 0:38:49.080
<v Speaker 1>Also, I'm in the midst of a long one as usual.

0:38:49.600 --> 0:38:54.200
<v Speaker 1>It also conflates doing stuff with outputs. I know that

0:38:54.239 --> 0:38:56.200
<v Speaker 1>sounds kind of flat, but it's like that everything is

0:38:56.239 --> 0:38:59.359
<v Speaker 1>a unit of work rather than actually creating stuff. Well

0:38:59.360 --> 0:39:00.920
<v Speaker 1>that you pay an you pay a person for their

0:39:00.960 --> 0:39:04.640
<v Speaker 1>experience too. And it's just also not very good at

0:39:04.680 --> 0:39:08.280
<v Speaker 1>Stuff's pissing me. No, really, it's really bad at stuff.

0:39:08.320 --> 0:39:10.360
<v Speaker 2>It is. And I think, and I think that's where

0:39:10.719 --> 0:39:13.640
<v Speaker 2>you know, this sort of driving people insane is coming from, right,

0:39:13.800 --> 0:39:18.600
<v Speaker 2>Like I I like what I missed. The reason I

0:39:18.600 --> 0:39:21.080
<v Speaker 2>think I didn't see that coming is I failed to

0:39:21.120 --> 0:39:26.279
<v Speaker 2>think about how like I knew that these things just

0:39:26.400 --> 0:39:28.200
<v Speaker 2>generate text and in a lot of ways they just

0:39:28.239 --> 0:39:31.960
<v Speaker 2>sort of spit out back to you what you put

0:39:32.000 --> 0:39:34.640
<v Speaker 2>in right, right, which is which is an old thing

0:39:34.719 --> 0:39:37.400
<v Speaker 2>with chatbots that goes way before the LMS, goes all

0:39:37.440 --> 0:39:38.920
<v Speaker 2>the way back to Eliza, right.

0:39:39.000 --> 0:39:41.600
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, and that was the first the first AI computer.

0:39:41.800 --> 0:39:44.839
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the first chapter. I wouldn't even call Eliza AI, right,

0:39:44.880 --> 0:39:45.520
<v Speaker 2>And even.

0:39:45.320 --> 0:39:47.719
<v Speaker 1>The creator of Eliza, god huz. Yeah, this is from

0:39:47.800 --> 0:39:50.640
<v Speaker 1>Karen Howe's Empire of AI. Great bit about it in there.

0:39:50.560 --> 0:39:53.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly, Yeah, no, no, no, Eliza. Eliza was just

0:39:53.480 --> 0:39:56.520
<v Speaker 2>like a one hundred or so lines of code that

0:39:56.600 --> 0:39:58.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, you'd say I'm having a bad day, and

0:39:58.360 --> 0:40:00.319
<v Speaker 2>it would say, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah,

0:40:00.600 --> 0:40:03.279
<v Speaker 2>why are you having a bad day? Right?

0:40:03.880 --> 0:40:08.400
<v Speaker 1>But like the gassing engine, the yeah.

0:40:08.000 --> 0:40:10.759
<v Speaker 2>Like that's the thing I didn't think about. Oh wait,

0:40:10.800 --> 0:40:13.200
<v Speaker 2>if it just repeats back what you put in, but

0:40:13.280 --> 0:40:15.600
<v Speaker 2>it does it in a way that's compelling and convincing

0:40:15.640 --> 0:40:18.160
<v Speaker 2>to some people, that's going to just get them sort

0:40:18.200 --> 0:40:21.400
<v Speaker 2>of caught in this like dope meine self validation loop,

0:40:21.760 --> 0:40:23.560
<v Speaker 2>and that could drive them off the edge.

0:40:23.600 --> 0:40:26.400
<v Speaker 1>And I think that there is a condescension. I judge

0:40:26.400 --> 0:40:28.480
<v Speaker 1>myself for this where I was like, oh, this doesn't

0:40:28.480 --> 0:40:32.480
<v Speaker 1>fool me, and it's like, but the harm also of

0:40:32.600 --> 0:40:34.759
<v Speaker 1>I'm very I'm blessed to have tons of people who

0:40:34.760 --> 0:40:38.360
<v Speaker 1>love me who also you give me clear feedback, which

0:40:38.400 --> 0:40:40.040
<v Speaker 1>is not just what I want to hear. But I

0:40:40.080 --> 0:40:42.960
<v Speaker 1>definitely when I was younger and very depressed, like crave

0:40:43.280 --> 0:40:45.719
<v Speaker 1>validation and crave someone to just tell me what I

0:40:45.760 --> 0:40:49.080
<v Speaker 1>want to hear, I definitely never thought what if someone did,

0:40:49.280 --> 0:40:53.719
<v Speaker 1>and the actual danger of having every fucking thought validated,

0:40:54.719 --> 0:40:57.000
<v Speaker 1>and also just the sheer horrors Like Matt Hughes, my

0:40:57.160 --> 0:40:58.960
<v Speaker 1>editor just did a great story about this kind of

0:40:58.960 --> 0:41:01.560
<v Speaker 1>horrible story where he's simulated someone going through a mental

0:41:01.560 --> 0:41:05.120
<v Speaker 1>health episode, and Claude was very clear to go, yeah, man,

0:41:05.160 --> 0:41:07.240
<v Speaker 1>you don't seem so good, chatchip. It's like, no, everyone

0:41:07.320 --> 0:41:09.719
<v Speaker 1>is not to get you made. Yeah, actually, it's in

0:41:10.000 --> 0:41:12.719
<v Speaker 1>any other tick in the world did this. You'd shut

0:41:12.760 --> 0:41:15.400
<v Speaker 1>the ship down immediately. Yeah, exactly, close it, you know,

0:41:15.680 --> 0:41:18.200
<v Speaker 1>But where's fucking Eliezer on this bullshit?

0:41:18.400 --> 0:41:19.479
<v Speaker 2>Because this feels like.

0:41:19.440 --> 0:41:22.279
<v Speaker 1>If you write a book about how everyone dies, this

0:41:22.320 --> 0:41:24.720
<v Speaker 1>should be the thing that if he actually believed in anything,

0:41:25.160 --> 0:41:27.360
<v Speaker 1>would he should be up saying like, hey, look, this

0:41:27.520 --> 0:41:28.560
<v Speaker 1>is what I was talking about.

0:41:28.680 --> 0:41:30.719
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I mean I I do think that he thinks

0:41:30.800 --> 0:41:34.120
<v Speaker 2>this is like an incipient version of what he's talking about.

0:41:34.160 --> 0:41:36.120
<v Speaker 2>I think, like a baby version. I think he loves it.

0:41:36.239 --> 0:41:39.279
<v Speaker 2>I think I think it helps him out well. I

0:41:39.320 --> 0:41:43.680
<v Speaker 2>think that he finds that useful for making the argument

0:41:43.719 --> 0:41:46.680
<v Speaker 2>that he made exactly. But he is not again the

0:41:46.800 --> 0:41:48.920
<v Speaker 2>argument he's making. And this is the only nice thing

0:41:48.960 --> 0:41:52.040
<v Speaker 2>I'll say about him. He means it, seriously, He's not

0:41:52.080 --> 0:41:55.520
<v Speaker 2>a grifter. He's three anxiety disorders in a trench coat.

0:41:56.960 --> 0:42:00.560
<v Speaker 1>Damn you put that on a fucking book, coach, stupid ass.

0:42:11.920 --> 0:42:16.400
<v Speaker 1>I can't think of any other movement in tech ever, Yeah,

0:42:16.440 --> 0:42:19.120
<v Speaker 1>there is anything like this, specifically because of how much

0:42:19.160 --> 0:42:21.000
<v Speaker 1>it sucks us, Like, I can't think of any maybe

0:42:21.040 --> 0:42:23.160
<v Speaker 1>the metavers and crypto, but even then, I don't like

0:42:23.200 --> 0:42:25.560
<v Speaker 1>the comparison. Yeah, they're so much smaller.

0:42:25.800 --> 0:42:29.279
<v Speaker 2>Honestly, what I keep thinking about is is that in

0:42:29.360 --> 0:42:33.600
<v Speaker 2>a way, it is taking the daily experience of the

0:42:33.719 --> 0:42:37.399
<v Speaker 2>tech billionaires and like bringing it to the masses, right,

0:42:37.440 --> 0:42:38.120
<v Speaker 2>because what is it?

0:42:38.280 --> 0:42:38.480
<v Speaker 1>Low?

0:42:38.640 --> 0:42:43.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, what is it like to be Sam Altman?

0:42:43.600 --> 0:42:43.839
<v Speaker 1>Right?

0:42:44.080 --> 0:42:47.479
<v Speaker 2>You've got billions of dollars and you're surrounded by people

0:42:47.520 --> 0:42:50.520
<v Speaker 2>who will never tell you no and validate your every thought.

0:42:50.360 --> 0:42:53.400
<v Speaker 1>And they'll convince you that you understand every subject exactly.

0:42:53.840 --> 0:42:55.959
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and now, well.

0:42:55.880 --> 0:42:58.239
<v Speaker 1>I've been saying this as well, because if you're an executive,

0:42:58.280 --> 0:43:01.520
<v Speaker 1>a machine that can write emails, readium and otherwise you

0:43:01.560 --> 0:43:03.600
<v Speaker 1>go to lunch, it's kind of magic. Yeah, but no,

0:43:03.800 --> 0:43:05.839
<v Speaker 1>I like this idea that it's the extension as well,

0:43:05.880 --> 0:43:09.360
<v Speaker 1>just this completely like separate thing that just as Yeah,

0:43:09.400 --> 0:43:11.160
<v Speaker 1>that's completely right, man, I fully agree.

0:43:11.280 --> 0:43:14.080
<v Speaker 2>Right, And so of course they don't see the harm

0:43:14.360 --> 0:43:17.800
<v Speaker 2>because that's their entire goddamn all that happens, and so

0:43:17.840 --> 0:43:19.800
<v Speaker 2>the well, but if this were bad for people, that

0:43:19.840 --> 0:43:21.880
<v Speaker 2>would mean that, you know, I'm in a bad environment.

0:43:21.920 --> 0:43:24.600
<v Speaker 2>That's unhealthy for me, and like, yeah, actually it is,

0:43:24.920 --> 0:43:26.719
<v Speaker 2>but they don't think they don't think that. But I

0:43:27.120 --> 0:43:31.359
<v Speaker 2>genuinely believe that like the best thing for the tech

0:43:31.400 --> 0:43:33.680
<v Speaker 2>billionaires themselves that could happen to them would be to

0:43:33.719 --> 0:43:35.319
<v Speaker 2>lose all their money, would be the best thing for

0:43:35.320 --> 0:43:37.040
<v Speaker 2>their mental health, put man of them.

0:43:37.120 --> 0:43:39.960
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, no, let me get them on the show. I

0:43:40.000 --> 0:43:41.799
<v Speaker 1>think that I could have a great chat with any

0:43:41.840 --> 0:43:45.400
<v Speaker 1>of them. Sure, just because I went to a private school.

0:43:45.440 --> 0:43:48.719
<v Speaker 1>Like a lot of these American billionaires as well, they

0:43:48.719 --> 0:43:52.440
<v Speaker 1>would get destroyed by the average scum aristocrats of old

0:43:52.440 --> 0:43:55.160
<v Speaker 1>in England, like the real blood drinkers.

0:43:56.520 --> 0:43:57.680
<v Speaker 2>They're amateur vampire.

0:43:57.960 --> 0:44:01.759
<v Speaker 1>No they really are though, like like they It's the

0:44:01.800 --> 0:44:05.120
<v Speaker 1>classic thing why British colonialism and American colonialism have never

0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:08.240
<v Speaker 1>matched up, because Britain was just evil. They just fucking

0:44:08.320 --> 0:44:10.480
<v Speaker 1>murdered people and destroyed communities. And they're like, why are

0:44:10.440 --> 0:44:11.960
<v Speaker 1>we're doing this? Of course we're British. This is what

0:44:12.000 --> 0:44:14.880
<v Speaker 1>we do here. What do you mean, what's a moral?

0:44:14.920 --> 0:44:15.640
<v Speaker 1>I've not heard of that.

0:44:16.200 --> 0:44:17.040
<v Speaker 2>No, what do you mean?

0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:19.840
<v Speaker 1>No? No, send my send my eighth cousin to to Africa,

0:44:19.920 --> 0:44:23.240
<v Speaker 1>shoot whoever you see. Like that was the horrifying stuff.

0:44:23.280 --> 0:44:26.680
<v Speaker 1>But they knew they didn't care about what people think.

0:44:26.719 --> 0:44:28.240
<v Speaker 1>I still think the billionaires care.

0:44:28.200 --> 0:44:30.360
<v Speaker 2>Oh, they definitely do. Like this is this is the

0:44:30.400 --> 0:44:31.160
<v Speaker 2>thing that which.

0:44:30.960 --> 0:44:33.040
<v Speaker 1>Is insane to me. If I had had one billion dollars,

0:44:33.080 --> 0:44:34.160
<v Speaker 1>I would no longer care.

0:44:34.280 --> 0:44:36.360
<v Speaker 2>Well, if I had a billion dollars, I would just

0:44:36.400 --> 0:44:39.040
<v Speaker 2>try to make sure that nobody knew my name and

0:44:39.120 --> 0:44:40.480
<v Speaker 2>that you know, it's the same amount.

0:44:40.640 --> 0:44:42.759
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well I would be posting.

0:44:42.760 --> 0:44:45.080
<v Speaker 2>No, I think I think I'd just be done. Man,

0:44:45.120 --> 0:44:47.800
<v Speaker 2>I'd be like, okay, cool, you know, I'm gonna donate

0:44:47.840 --> 0:44:50.279
<v Speaker 2>to a bunch of causes that mattered to men, and

0:44:50.320 --> 0:44:52.399
<v Speaker 2>you know, like I still think it's bad for them

0:44:52.440 --> 0:44:54.640
<v Speaker 2>to be billionaires, and I try to try to change that,

0:44:54.880 --> 0:44:57.200
<v Speaker 2>but also like I'm just just gonna, like, you know,

0:44:57.400 --> 0:44:59.400
<v Speaker 2>hang out in a nice house with my friends and

0:44:59.480 --> 0:45:00.000
<v Speaker 2>have a good time.

0:45:00.280 --> 0:45:03.000
<v Speaker 1>That's the problem though they don't have those.

0:45:03.160 --> 0:45:04.480
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, because you've heard that.

0:45:04.520 --> 0:45:06.799
<v Speaker 1>Have you ever heard the really depressing story about Elon

0:45:06.880 --> 0:45:10.080
<v Speaker 1>Musk and this guy called here was this investor who

0:45:10.120 --> 0:45:13.560
<v Speaker 1>got really cooked by COVID Peter something, and he know

0:45:13.680 --> 0:45:15.920
<v Speaker 1>this story of going over to Elon Musk's house and

0:45:15.960 --> 0:45:18.839
<v Speaker 1>there was a decanter of wine and Elon Musk picked

0:45:18.920 --> 0:45:21.160
<v Speaker 1>up the wine before it's done decanting, and then something

0:45:21.280 --> 0:45:23.319
<v Speaker 1>said something along the lines of honey, badger, don't care.

0:45:23.760 --> 0:45:25.120
<v Speaker 1>And I just want to say, that's one of the

0:45:25.200 --> 0:45:29.040
<v Speaker 1>saddest fucking things I've heard in my life, just absolutely,

0:45:29.080 --> 0:45:32.160
<v Speaker 1>just unfathomably depressing. Because you can get things like a

0:45:32.160 --> 0:45:34.760
<v Speaker 1>coravan that can kind of aerrate it. There are various

0:45:34.760 --> 0:45:37.160
<v Speaker 1>ways around ourration. If you're really feeling it and you

0:45:37.280 --> 0:45:40.240
<v Speaker 1>have hundreds of billions or what, however many many dollars

0:45:40.520 --> 0:45:44.520
<v Speaker 1>Elon has liquid, you could just have someone whose job

0:45:44.600 --> 0:45:46.799
<v Speaker 1>is to make sure the wine is errated. They could

0:45:46.840 --> 0:45:48.560
<v Speaker 1>make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. It

0:45:48.600 --> 0:45:50.520
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't matter to you. That's what you lose in the couch.

0:45:50.840 --> 0:45:53.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but I think that what matters to Elon is

0:45:53.120 --> 0:45:56.120
<v Speaker 2>not doing what he's supposed to do, right. Yeah, he

0:45:56.160 --> 0:45:57.719
<v Speaker 2>can be seen as cool.

0:45:57.560 --> 0:46:00.319
<v Speaker 1>Or just drinking as quickly well, because otherwise he might

0:46:00.360 --> 0:46:01.080
<v Speaker 1>feel something.

0:46:01.280 --> 0:46:04.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, I just he desperately wants to be

0:46:04.760 --> 0:46:06.680
<v Speaker 2>liked and it's never gonna happen.

0:46:07.200 --> 0:46:08.839
<v Speaker 1>It's so funny as well, because it could be so

0:46:08.920 --> 0:46:10.920
<v Speaker 1>easy for him. I know, he could just post this

0:46:11.000 --> 0:46:12.759
<v Speaker 1>lunch every day and nothing else. Then would be like,

0:46:13.320 --> 0:46:15.560
<v Speaker 1>look at this is actually what pisses me off as well, though,

0:46:15.560 --> 0:46:18.239
<v Speaker 1>because people like el must fucking sucks. It's like he

0:46:18.360 --> 0:46:21.720
<v Speaker 1>was sending people off to Aaron Bieber, a science reporter.

0:46:21.640 --> 0:46:23.839
<v Speaker 2>In twenty one's a friend of mine.

0:46:23.880 --> 0:46:26.680
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's p and like when that happened, not a

0:46:26.719 --> 0:46:29.120
<v Speaker 1>single Kara Swisher didn't say shit, then here Kevin Rouse

0:46:29.160 --> 0:46:31.480
<v Speaker 1>Case and you and on these fucking people I thought necessary,

0:46:31.520 --> 0:46:31.920
<v Speaker 1>but now.

0:46:31.800 --> 0:46:33.960
<v Speaker 2>Like must have such a bad guy. He's such a

0:46:34.000 --> 0:46:35.480
<v Speaker 2>bad No, he's always been like.

0:46:35.480 --> 0:46:38.040
<v Speaker 1>And also he called a guy a pedophile for saving

0:46:38.120 --> 0:46:41.600
<v Speaker 1>children yep, because he wasn't allowed to send his submarine.

0:46:42.760 --> 0:46:45.000
<v Speaker 2>No, he's never been good like this is this is

0:46:45.040 --> 0:46:46.000
<v Speaker 2>the thing that I.

0:46:45.920 --> 0:46:48.399
<v Speaker 1>Don't think any of these people enjoy anything as much

0:46:48.400 --> 0:46:51.680
<v Speaker 1>as I enjoyed diet coke. Like I'm one hundred percent

0:46:51.680 --> 0:46:53.600
<v Speaker 1>sure of that, because I love these things. Like it's

0:46:53.760 --> 0:46:56.040
<v Speaker 1>if this kills me, if this shit's meant to like

0:46:56.120 --> 0:46:58.719
<v Speaker 1>in three years, they're like, it's rat blood, Like I'm like,

0:46:58.800 --> 0:46:59.200
<v Speaker 1>I will.

0:46:59.120 --> 0:47:02.160
<v Speaker 2>Keep drinking offline brought to you by Diet Coke.

0:47:02.280 --> 0:47:06.719
<v Speaker 1>It's rap blood. I really hope that you spokes the

0:47:06.719 --> 0:47:09.239
<v Speaker 1>show at one point, so that's the commercial. But that's

0:47:09.280 --> 0:47:11.640
<v Speaker 1>the thing, Like I'm only kind of joking because it's

0:47:11.840 --> 0:47:13.840
<v Speaker 1>I really enjoyed that coke. I'm sitting down chat and

0:47:13.920 --> 0:47:15.719
<v Speaker 1>chew with my friends. I love watching football with chat

0:47:15.719 --> 0:47:18.160
<v Speaker 1>with my friends. Like it's like there are very basic

0:47:18.200 --> 0:47:20.560
<v Speaker 1>things I enjoy. What do these people Like? These people

0:47:20.600 --> 0:47:23.240
<v Speaker 1>just must walk around in this haze of anger, yeah,

0:47:23.320 --> 0:47:24.640
<v Speaker 1>or like emptiness.

0:47:24.719 --> 0:47:27.160
<v Speaker 2>I think they're they're really cut off from their own emotions,

0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:29.640
<v Speaker 2>right and like and again, that's gonna happen if you

0:47:29.680 --> 0:47:33.040
<v Speaker 2>just constantly get validation, right, you know. One of one

0:47:33.080 --> 0:47:36.360
<v Speaker 2>of the many tweets from back when Twitter was less shitty,

0:47:36.440 --> 0:47:40.080
<v Speaker 2>before Musk bought it. There are many tweets that just

0:47:40.120 --> 0:47:41.840
<v Speaker 2>like live rent free in my head, and one of

0:47:41.840 --> 0:47:48.239
<v Speaker 2>them is about the cognitive impact of being a billionaire. Yeah,

0:47:48.320 --> 0:47:50.840
<v Speaker 2>it ends. It's like, you know, like everything around you

0:47:50.920 --> 0:47:56.160
<v Speaker 2>is really expensive. It's just a constant every chair fifty Yeah,

0:47:56.160 --> 0:47:58.600
<v Speaker 2>in terms of the cognitive impact, it must be you know,

0:47:58.680 --> 0:48:00.719
<v Speaker 2>roughly equivalent to being kicked in the head by a

0:48:00.800 --> 0:48:02.719
<v Speaker 2>horse every day exactly. Yeah.

0:48:02.760 --> 0:48:06.600
<v Speaker 1>I think I'd be fine, but that's my pathology, I guess,

0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:10.080
<v Speaker 1>but it no, but it's they have this weird isolated thing.

0:48:10.120 --> 0:48:13.120
<v Speaker 1>And even Benioff, who used to seem okay.

0:48:13.000 --> 0:48:15.400
<v Speaker 2>Well, I mean he his whole game was like to

0:48:15.480 --> 0:48:17.480
<v Speaker 2>be the best of the billionaires.

0:48:17.000 --> 0:48:19.359
<v Speaker 1>Which love are, and then he was just like, ah,

0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:22.480
<v Speaker 1>fuck it, yep, just fuck it. I don't give a

0:48:22.480 --> 0:48:26.200
<v Speaker 1>shit anymore. Yeah, Agent Force, it doesn't sell to anyone.

0:48:26.239 --> 0:48:28.600
<v Speaker 1>No one likes it, but it's the future agent for

0:48:28.719 --> 0:48:30.680
<v Speaker 1>us Jesus, he's.

0:48:30.520 --> 0:48:32.160
<v Speaker 2>Donated to all. I know, it's so cool.

0:48:32.239 --> 0:48:34.480
<v Speaker 1>It must be really cool being a guy who actually

0:48:34.520 --> 0:48:38.799
<v Speaker 1>has qualifications and from from proving things to watch the

0:48:38.840 --> 0:48:40.880
<v Speaker 1>world like all these guys being like, yeah, this is

0:48:40.880 --> 0:48:43.279
<v Speaker 1>the future and just because want to go it doesn't work.

0:48:43.320 --> 0:48:45.960
<v Speaker 2>No one likes it. Yeah, I mean cool is one word.

0:48:46.120 --> 0:48:47.800
<v Speaker 2>Incredibly frustrating is another.

0:48:48.040 --> 0:48:50.920
<v Speaker 1>Right, this is this is stymying real innovation.

0:48:51.160 --> 0:48:54.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I know there's opportunity costs and and also

0:48:54.640 --> 0:48:59.080
<v Speaker 2>just like actual stifling of real innovation in the effort

0:48:59.160 --> 0:49:02.319
<v Speaker 2>to achieve even possible ends that would be bad even

0:49:02.360 --> 0:49:03.560
<v Speaker 2>if we could achieve them.

0:49:03.719 --> 0:49:08.040
<v Speaker 1>So slight directional shift. Is there anything within like science

0:49:08.040 --> 0:49:10.640
<v Speaker 1>and tech innovation that you're actually excited about? Anything you

0:49:10.640 --> 0:49:12.400
<v Speaker 1>look at and like that's fucking cool.

0:49:12.560 --> 0:49:14.759
<v Speaker 2>I mean mRNA vaccines are the first thing that comes

0:49:14.800 --> 0:49:16.760
<v Speaker 2>about exactly. Yeah, they're really awesome.

0:49:17.000 --> 0:49:17.520
<v Speaker 1>Tell them.

0:49:17.920 --> 0:49:21.160
<v Speaker 2>I mean, like, look, you know the fact and what is.

0:49:21.160 --> 0:49:24.279
<v Speaker 1>An mri NA vaccine said flawlessly.

0:49:23.960 --> 0:49:31.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, an m now I'm able. Yeah, and mRNA vaccine.

0:49:31.680 --> 0:49:36.640
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's the kind of thing that that you know,

0:49:36.680 --> 0:49:41.799
<v Speaker 3>we have with the COVID vaccines, right, Basically, the thing

0:49:41.840 --> 0:49:43.880
<v Speaker 3>that's so exciting about them is that they are so

0:49:44.160 --> 0:49:49.560
<v Speaker 3>much easier and faster to synthesize, right than previous vaccines.

0:49:50.520 --> 0:49:53.960
<v Speaker 2>You know, I think the previous record before the COVID vaccine,

0:49:54.600 --> 0:49:58.080
<v Speaker 2>for you know, how long it took to develop a safe,

0:49:58.080 --> 0:50:02.000
<v Speaker 2>widely deployed vaccine with something like five to ten years, Jesus,

0:50:02.040 --> 0:50:05.719
<v Speaker 2>And then this vaccine. Most of the time delay, most

0:50:05.719 --> 0:50:08.200
<v Speaker 2>of that year that we were waiting for the vaccine

0:50:09.160 --> 0:50:12.480
<v Speaker 2>was actually a little less than a year. Most of

0:50:12.520 --> 0:50:15.640
<v Speaker 2>that was testing. The actual time that it took to

0:50:15.680 --> 0:50:18.399
<v Speaker 2>synthesize the damn thing was I believe on the order

0:50:18.440 --> 0:50:19.000
<v Speaker 2>of weeks.

0:50:19.040 --> 0:50:22.200
<v Speaker 1>And what's crazy is I believe that was venture backed, right, Yeah,

0:50:22.200 --> 0:50:24.000
<v Speaker 1>some of it was venture backed, which is like, see

0:50:24.040 --> 0:50:25.440
<v Speaker 1>venu capital can be useful.

0:50:25.239 --> 0:50:28.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it can be, but once Yeah, some of it

0:50:28.920 --> 0:50:31.080
<v Speaker 2>was venture backed. Some of it was backed by you know,

0:50:31.239 --> 0:50:35.279
<v Speaker 2>NIH grants. We do need those, yeah, we surefucking do.

0:50:36.239 --> 0:50:36.319
<v Speaker 1>No.

0:50:36.480 --> 0:50:41.279
<v Speaker 2>Government funding of basic research is important and not just

0:50:41.360 --> 0:50:45.640
<v Speaker 2>because it leads to amazing technological breakthroughs like mRNA vaccines,

0:50:45.960 --> 0:50:50.480
<v Speaker 2>but also because, like basic scientific research is an important

0:50:50.560 --> 0:50:54.400
<v Speaker 2>thing for humans to do, like the same way that

0:50:54.600 --> 0:50:58.839
<v Speaker 2>art is important, right, right, but it also does enable

0:50:58.880 --> 0:51:04.480
<v Speaker 2>a massive scientific and technological breakthroughs. And I you know,

0:51:04.880 --> 0:51:08.840
<v Speaker 2>there's promise for MR and A vaccines to like open

0:51:08.960 --> 0:51:12.920
<v Speaker 2>up a whole new class of vaccines that you know,

0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:16.200
<v Speaker 2>for things that were previously very hard to vaccinate against.

0:51:17.080 --> 0:51:19.120
<v Speaker 2>I am not an expert in the field, but like

0:51:19.200 --> 0:51:23.480
<v Speaker 2>everyone I know who works in biomedicine, they they're all

0:51:23.600 --> 0:51:26.040
<v Speaker 2>very excited about this, and they're all really depressed by

0:51:26.080 --> 0:51:30.560
<v Speaker 2>the fact that, you know, we have an antifactor who

0:51:30.680 --> 0:51:33.840
<v Speaker 2>sounds like a fork that got stuck in a fucking

0:51:33.960 --> 0:51:36.320
<v Speaker 2>garbage disposal as the Health.

0:51:36.480 --> 0:51:39.680
<v Speaker 1>And Rise from your Grave guy from that one video. Yeah, yeah,

0:51:39.920 --> 0:51:43.160
<v Speaker 1>very depressing. I I just wish we were like green

0:51:43.280 --> 0:51:44.840
<v Speaker 1>energy as well. Feels like an oh.

0:51:44.719 --> 0:51:47.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, green energy was the next thing I was gonna say, Yeah, batteries,

0:51:47.800 --> 0:51:49.400
<v Speaker 2>solar panels. It's incredible.

0:51:50.960 --> 0:51:54.400
<v Speaker 1>Uh, this opportunity is there. Yeah, it's we need to innovate,

0:51:55.040 --> 0:51:56.040
<v Speaker 1>Like we are innovating.

0:51:56.120 --> 0:51:59.440
<v Speaker 2>But like, yeah, and also like we even had the

0:51:59.560 --> 0:52:02.000
<v Speaker 2>legislation that we needed, right or some of it right,

0:52:02.120 --> 0:52:06.319
<v Speaker 2>like the you know Biden's big bill, the Build Back

0:52:06.360 --> 0:52:11.080
<v Speaker 2>Better It uh, you know, was not a perfect bill,

0:52:11.360 --> 0:52:16.440
<v Speaker 2>but it was the best environmental bill in American history. Yeah,

0:52:16.480 --> 0:52:20.439
<v Speaker 2>and and now you know, it's being destroyed because we

0:52:20.560 --> 0:52:23.200
<v Speaker 2>have a government in this country that that you know,

0:52:23.360 --> 0:52:26.960
<v Speaker 2>does not believe in climate change and doesn't believe in

0:52:27.000 --> 0:52:29.400
<v Speaker 2>anything other than short term profits at the expense of

0:52:29.400 --> 0:52:32.640
<v Speaker 2>everybody else, and also doesn't believe in democracy.

0:52:32.719 --> 0:52:34.920
<v Speaker 1>That feels that feels like a big problem though, the

0:52:34.960 --> 0:52:37.279
<v Speaker 1>growth it all cause, Yeah.

0:52:37.000 --> 0:52:39.400
<v Speaker 2>I mean, that's that's the thing. And that's why my

0:52:39.440 --> 0:52:42.200
<v Speaker 2>book has the actual title that it does, rather than

0:52:42.239 --> 0:52:43.800
<v Speaker 2>going with the title these fucking people.

0:52:44.040 --> 0:52:46.600
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so these fucking people or just the Bostards. I

0:52:46.600 --> 0:52:47.960
<v Speaker 1>think it is also very good too.

0:52:48.080 --> 0:52:50.800
<v Speaker 2>I think so too. I mean, like there's ah, it

0:52:50.800 --> 0:52:52.600
<v Speaker 2>would be so easy for them to do better, No,

0:52:54.280 --> 0:52:57.360
<v Speaker 2>like you know, to forget forget the best thing that

0:52:57.360 --> 0:52:59.840
<v Speaker 2>they could do. They're doing some of the worst things

0:52:59.840 --> 0:53:01.759
<v Speaker 2>that they could do. Doing better than they are right

0:53:01.760 --> 0:53:03.239
<v Speaker 2>now is just an incredibly low but.

0:53:03.560 --> 0:53:09.360
<v Speaker 1>Even through like very poorly guided generosity, they could very easily. Yeah,

0:53:09.400 --> 0:53:11.880
<v Speaker 1>they could just fund media outlets versus whatever it is

0:53:11.880 --> 0:53:14.560
<v Speaker 1>they're doing to them, tearing them down.

0:53:14.680 --> 0:53:17.440
<v Speaker 2>But that would mean, you know the possibility of losing

0:53:17.480 --> 0:53:22.320
<v Speaker 2>control and losing you know, losing some of their power

0:53:22.360 --> 0:53:24.359
<v Speaker 2>and money, and they just are not willing to do

0:53:24.400 --> 0:53:27.200
<v Speaker 2>that because they've got something broken in their hearts.

0:53:27.920 --> 0:53:30.680
<v Speaker 1>We need to heal them. No, now I think that,

0:53:30.880 --> 0:53:31.320
<v Speaker 1>I think.

0:53:31.239 --> 0:53:32.960
<v Speaker 2>I think we need to tax their money away.

0:53:33.080 --> 0:53:36.320
<v Speaker 1>I think that too, but I think we actually true.

0:53:36.360 --> 0:53:38.680
<v Speaker 1>My truth here is that we need to change how

0:53:38.719 --> 0:53:41.360
<v Speaker 1>we do that though. We need to start doing executive

0:53:41.400 --> 0:53:44.160
<v Speaker 1>liability hmmm. We need to make it so if like

0:53:44.200 --> 0:53:48.160
<v Speaker 1>CrowdStrike happens again, like a bunch of people potentially get

0:53:48.200 --> 0:53:50.560
<v Speaker 1>diye in the NHS system because the computer shuts down,

0:53:50.560 --> 0:53:52.719
<v Speaker 1>that satch and a DELA can lose something because it

0:53:52.800 --> 0:53:55.160
<v Speaker 1>isn't enough to find the companies. Finding the company is

0:53:55.200 --> 0:53:58.360
<v Speaker 1>not going to do shit unless you do scaling revenue

0:53:58.440 --> 0:54:00.960
<v Speaker 1>percentage of revenue. This is this and more and how

0:54:01.000 --> 0:54:01.799
<v Speaker 1>I become the FTC.

0:54:01.960 --> 0:54:03.120
<v Speaker 2>No, they I'm not kind of let me.

0:54:03.560 --> 0:54:07.160
<v Speaker 1>But it's just I feel the one of the wonderful

0:54:07.160 --> 0:54:08.600
<v Speaker 1>things of having you on is you're able to come

0:54:08.640 --> 0:54:11.480
<v Speaker 1>at this from a science communicator perspective. You're actually able

0:54:11.480 --> 0:54:14.160
<v Speaker 1>to because it's not just about what these people want.

0:54:14.200 --> 0:54:17.239
<v Speaker 1>It's the practicality of it, which is the nothing's really

0:54:17.680 --> 0:54:20.080
<v Speaker 1>happening yep. But that's the actual weirdest thing about the

0:54:20.480 --> 0:54:23.360
<v Speaker 1>real nihilism of this is that nothing seems to actually

0:54:23.400 --> 0:54:24.480
<v Speaker 1>be occurring.

0:54:24.680 --> 0:54:26.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and they also act like there's not going to

0:54:26.880 --> 0:54:30.439
<v Speaker 2>be any accountability for like, forget their actions, just even

0:54:30.480 --> 0:54:34.040
<v Speaker 2>their words. Right, you know, Sam Altman says, you know,

0:54:34.120 --> 0:54:36.080
<v Speaker 2>like this this thing that just drove me up a

0:54:36.120 --> 0:54:38.840
<v Speaker 2>wall that he said about a month ago, he said that,

0:54:38.880 --> 0:54:40.960
<v Speaker 2>you know, in ten years, college graduates are going to

0:54:41.000 --> 0:54:43.880
<v Speaker 2>have really cool jobs going out to explore the solar

0:54:43.920 --> 0:54:47.560
<v Speaker 2>system in the spaceships enabled by AI. That is not happening,

0:54:47.960 --> 0:54:51.279
<v Speaker 2>like on the list of things that are not happening exploration. No, No,

0:54:51.520 --> 0:54:56.399
<v Speaker 2>that's not happening. He is just wrong. He's lying, right,

0:54:56.640 --> 0:54:59.000
<v Speaker 2>and he is probably still going to be alive in

0:54:59.040 --> 0:55:01.560
<v Speaker 2>ten years, and you and I are also likely still

0:55:01.560 --> 0:55:03.439
<v Speaker 2>going to be alive in ten years. And then we're

0:55:03.480 --> 0:55:06.600
<v Speaker 2>gonna say, hey, remember when he said that that, you know,

0:55:06.680 --> 0:55:10.560
<v Speaker 2>now we we can show he's just wrong and he

0:55:10.719 --> 0:55:12.160
<v Speaker 2>and nothing's gonna happen to.

0:55:12.160 --> 0:55:14.000
<v Speaker 1>Him and what these like this is why I'm so

0:55:14.080 --> 0:55:16.319
<v Speaker 1>harsh on media criticism as well. Yeah, the one thing

0:55:16.320 --> 0:55:18.920
<v Speaker 1>you can do is at least say area man full

0:55:18.960 --> 0:55:21.920
<v Speaker 1>of shit. Yes, stupid bastard wanks off again.

0:55:22.000 --> 0:55:23.719
<v Speaker 2>Well, this is my this is what I attempted to do.

0:55:23.719 --> 0:55:24.120
<v Speaker 2>What you do?

0:55:24.239 --> 0:55:27.560
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, and it's I think that the change that

0:55:27.600 --> 0:55:29.440
<v Speaker 1>we need in our hearts is to just regularly say

0:55:29.440 --> 0:55:30.960
<v Speaker 1>this stuff. I regularly say on the show. I don't

0:55:30.960 --> 0:55:34.680
<v Speaker 1>care if you quote me, just say this shit about them. Yeah, clammy, Sammy.

0:55:34.760 --> 0:55:37.080
<v Speaker 1>He's been promising. He said that this was the year

0:55:37.120 --> 0:55:40.840
<v Speaker 1>of agents. He said that. I don't, but now I

0:55:40.880 --> 0:55:43.360
<v Speaker 1>read in the Information dot Com the next year is

0:55:43.400 --> 0:55:46.600
<v Speaker 1>the year of agents, So maybe I do. Actually, here's

0:55:46.600 --> 0:55:48.880
<v Speaker 1>a question for you. Yeah, AI twenty twenty seven. Do

0:55:48.920 --> 0:55:49.440
<v Speaker 1>you read that.

0:55:50.040 --> 0:55:53.200
<v Speaker 2>He've read a little bit of it. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. Yeah.

0:55:53.239 --> 0:55:56.400
<v Speaker 1>Why do you think things like that fool so many people?

0:55:56.440 --> 0:55:56.680
<v Speaker 2>Though?

0:55:57.680 --> 0:55:59.879
<v Speaker 1>Why do you think it got the media coverage it did?

0:56:00.320 --> 0:56:03.879
<v Speaker 2>See? Sh I mean? Part of it is bad journalism, right.

0:56:03.920 --> 0:56:07.400
<v Speaker 2>Part of it is is that Kevin Russ has confused

0:56:09.840 --> 0:56:16.600
<v Speaker 2>Kevin and Russ has confused reiterating the views of the wealthy,

0:56:16.640 --> 0:56:22.120
<v Speaker 2>influential and powerful with taking a brave contrarian stance. And

0:56:22.160 --> 0:56:24.880
<v Speaker 2>how he made that mistake I don't know, but you know,

0:56:25.000 --> 0:56:26.919
<v Speaker 2>I really get the sense that he thinks he's being

0:56:27.000 --> 0:56:30.960
<v Speaker 2>very brave when he's doing exactly what journalists are not

0:56:31.000 --> 0:56:34.840
<v Speaker 2>supposed to do, which is just uncritically parroting powerful.

0:56:34.440 --> 0:56:36.919
<v Speaker 1>And it feels like it's the large language model again.

0:56:36.960 --> 0:56:38.759
<v Speaker 1>It's just the affirming thing. It's like, oh, I'm being

0:56:38.760 --> 0:56:41.040
<v Speaker 1>contrarian by stepping out against these people who say it

0:56:41.040 --> 0:56:43.120
<v Speaker 1>isn't making any money and isn't very good at stuff.

0:56:43.160 --> 0:56:46.160
<v Speaker 2>And it's like, look, buddy, if there's you know, if

0:56:46.200 --> 0:56:49.080
<v Speaker 2>there's a two sides to a debate, I mean, obviously

0:56:49.120 --> 0:56:51.040
<v Speaker 2>there's more than two sides, but like if on one

0:56:51.120 --> 0:56:55.359
<v Speaker 2>side you have the wealthiest people in the world and

0:56:55.400 --> 0:56:57.640
<v Speaker 2>on the other side you have people who say mean

0:56:57.719 --> 0:57:02.400
<v Speaker 2>things about you personally online, and you think that you know,

0:57:02.880 --> 0:57:07.320
<v Speaker 2>it's the first side that's the contrarian underdog. Yeah, something

0:57:07.400 --> 0:57:09.359
<v Speaker 2>is wrong with your brain, and that's the thing.

0:57:09.719 --> 0:57:12.240
<v Speaker 1>But this is, and this, I think is a weird

0:57:12.239 --> 0:57:14.560
<v Speaker 1>thing in our society that we just people trust the

0:57:14.680 --> 0:57:17.200
<v Speaker 1>rich and the media has got to a point where

0:57:17.240 --> 0:57:19.840
<v Speaker 1>they've just bred out the real cynicism because I swear,

0:57:19.880 --> 0:57:22.640
<v Speaker 1>like ten to fifteen years ago, you used to have

0:57:22.920 --> 0:57:25.400
<v Speaker 1>some tech journalism, Like I read a thing about Amazon

0:57:25.480 --> 0:57:28.400
<v Speaker 1>web services that Kevin Ross wrote and it was actually

0:57:28.440 --> 0:57:30.760
<v Speaker 1>pretty cynical about it. Really, yeah, it was actually pretty critical.

0:57:30.800 --> 0:57:32.640
<v Speaker 1>He then he made I feel bad for him because

0:57:32.640 --> 0:57:34.600
<v Speaker 1>this can't be in his fault. He basically said at

0:57:34.640 --> 0:57:37.440
<v Speaker 1>the end, Yeah, they'll never be profitable. No, no, no,

0:57:37.480 --> 0:57:40.600
<v Speaker 1>it gets worse at a month later, Amazon announced that

0:57:40.640 --> 0:57:44.400
<v Speaker 1>AWS is profitable for the first time. Just like Buddy

0:57:45.600 --> 0:57:46.280
<v Speaker 1>miss the bean.

0:57:46.360 --> 0:57:49.640
<v Speaker 2>Come on, whoa, Yeah, maybe that's the origin story. Maybe

0:57:49.680 --> 0:57:51.080
<v Speaker 2>he was like, oh wow, I screwed that up.

0:57:51.080 --> 0:57:54.320
<v Speaker 1>I guess I believe the origin story is actual social media.

0:57:54.360 --> 0:57:56.720
<v Speaker 1>I think I think he felt. I actually think a

0:57:56.720 --> 0:57:58.680
<v Speaker 1>lot of journalists think that they missed the boat on

0:57:58.720 --> 0:58:02.240
<v Speaker 1>social media. I have been in media relations since two

0:58:02.240 --> 0:58:04.919
<v Speaker 1>thousand and eight. I have read and this sounds insane, yeah,

0:58:04.920 --> 0:58:07.520
<v Speaker 1>but it's true. I think I've read just about everybody's

0:58:07.560 --> 0:58:11.080
<v Speaker 1>work since then within the tech media, at least, including Kevin's,

0:58:11.400 --> 0:58:13.760
<v Speaker 1>and he has always had a little bit of anxiety

0:58:13.800 --> 0:58:17.200
<v Speaker 1>that he missed social media. Nobody missed social media, not

0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:20.000
<v Speaker 1>a single fucking one since two thousand and eight. Everybody

0:58:20.120 --> 0:58:23.760
<v Speaker 1>was on Zuckerberg's zuck. He sucked him off at hardcore.

0:58:23.840 --> 0:58:26.720
<v Speaker 1>Sorry sorry, but nevertheless, they were on top of this,

0:58:26.760 --> 0:58:29.240
<v Speaker 1>they wrote about some social media was written about immediately.

0:58:29.440 --> 0:58:31.760
<v Speaker 1>If anything, I think the media was a little slow

0:58:31.800 --> 0:58:33.920
<v Speaker 1>to get on apps. Then they gone on hardcore. I

0:58:34.120 --> 0:58:36.280
<v Speaker 1>know the history of this shit. I have been taking

0:58:36.320 --> 0:58:40.360
<v Speaker 1>detailed notes. They sound crazy, but I think that there's

0:58:40.440 --> 0:58:42.720
<v Speaker 1>just there is this weird thing of like the powerful

0:58:42.760 --> 0:58:45.600
<v Speaker 1>would never lie to us. And then Prism came out,

0:58:45.960 --> 0:58:49.600
<v Speaker 1>and then Cambridge Analytic happened and people are like, maybe

0:58:49.680 --> 0:58:52.400
<v Speaker 1>Zuckerberg's bad, but he wouldn't lie to us. He would

0:58:52.640 --> 0:58:55.560
<v Speaker 1>and they're like, well they know things we don't know.

0:58:55.720 --> 0:58:58.200
<v Speaker 1>And that's actually another that's my favorite. AI think when

0:58:58.200 --> 0:59:01.280
<v Speaker 1>it's like the secret things they're working on, secret things,

0:59:01.640 --> 0:59:04.160
<v Speaker 1>secret things, sitting in the waiting in the wings, you'll

0:59:04.160 --> 0:59:06.640
<v Speaker 1>never believe what's coming. And it's just I actually think

0:59:06.720 --> 0:59:10.320
<v Speaker 1>it's just what's his name, Iliasuitskeva just goes to Bar's occasion.

0:59:10.320 --> 0:59:13.040
<v Speaker 1>He's like, you'll never guess when I said, you never get.

0:59:13.080 --> 0:59:15.680
<v Speaker 2>A okay, okay, no, I I have a thing to

0:59:15.680 --> 0:59:19.240
<v Speaker 2>say about when like this is this is me just

0:59:19.320 --> 0:59:21.400
<v Speaker 2>being petty and making a point that other people have

0:59:21.440 --> 0:59:23.440
<v Speaker 2>made that yeah, of course.

0:59:23.680 --> 0:59:23.760
<v Speaker 1>No.

0:59:23.880 --> 0:59:26.480
<v Speaker 2>When he when he announced that he was you know,

0:59:26.600 --> 0:59:30.320
<v Speaker 2>putting together a team to you know, just go straight

0:59:30.400 --> 0:59:34.240
<v Speaker 2>for safe super intelligence. He meant to say when he

0:59:34.280 --> 0:59:36.440
<v Speaker 2>posted this on social media, that he was putting together

0:59:36.520 --> 0:59:39.800
<v Speaker 2>a crack team, but that's not what he wrote. What

0:59:39.960 --> 0:59:41.840
<v Speaker 2>he right, He wrote that he was putting together a

0:59:42.000 --> 0:59:48.000
<v Speaker 2>cracked team. Hmmm, crack ed, cracked, and like, yeah, actually

0:59:48.040 --> 0:59:49.880
<v Speaker 2>you know what, Yeah, I think that's true.

0:59:49.920 --> 0:59:53.280
<v Speaker 1>I agree, yeah, exactly. I also think him and Mary

0:59:53.360 --> 0:59:57.720
<v Speaker 1>Moralty I can't. And so for the for the listeners, Illocitskava,

0:59:57.760 --> 0:59:59.840
<v Speaker 1>one of the co founders of OPE and I, raised

1:00:00.320 --> 1:00:03.439
<v Speaker 1>two billion dollars at a thirty billion dollar valuation. Mira

1:00:03.520 --> 1:00:07.800
<v Speaker 1>Mourati did a billion some amounts some bullshit. Neither of

1:00:07.840 --> 1:00:11.400
<v Speaker 1>these companies have told their investors how they will spend

1:00:11.400 --> 1:00:13.920
<v Speaker 1>the money, or what on or what they will build.

1:00:13.960 --> 1:00:17.080
<v Speaker 1>And you may think I'm being facetious. Mira Murati literally

1:00:17.120 --> 1:00:20.520
<v Speaker 1>said to investors, I will not tell you, and then

1:00:20.600 --> 1:00:24.480
<v Speaker 1>said I and has board rights where she can veto everyone,

1:00:25.240 --> 1:00:28.120
<v Speaker 1>I will be honest, go for it. Fuck yeah, I

1:00:28.240 --> 1:00:30.480
<v Speaker 1>think I think at this stage, if these people are

1:00:30.480 --> 1:00:33.720
<v Speaker 1>so fucking stupid that you're just like, I promise you

1:00:33.800 --> 1:00:37.320
<v Speaker 1>literally nothing. I won't give you you hogs a single

1:00:37.440 --> 1:00:39.600
<v Speaker 1>oinc You're not gonna get anything from me. Give me

1:00:39.680 --> 1:00:42.560
<v Speaker 1>money now, fuck yeah, go for it. But on the

1:00:42.560 --> 1:00:45.120
<v Speaker 1>other hand, I cannot wait for the investigation.

1:00:46.400 --> 1:00:48.360
<v Speaker 2>I just hope there is one. Right. These people are

1:00:48.400 --> 1:00:53.480
<v Speaker 2>acting with impunity like and and also like again accountability

1:00:53.640 --> 1:00:57.240
<v Speaker 2>just for their words. Right. The most basic criticism of

1:00:57.280 --> 1:01:01.600
<v Speaker 2>the wealthy in media like this is to shift just

1:01:01.640 --> 1:01:06.520
<v Speaker 2>a little bit. Eric Schmidt right said about about a

1:01:06.560 --> 1:01:09.560
<v Speaker 2>year ago, shortly before the election, he said, we're never

1:01:09.600 --> 1:01:12.560
<v Speaker 2>going to meet our climate goals anyway, so we might

1:01:12.640 --> 1:01:14.920
<v Speaker 2>as well just burn as much carbon and use as

1:01:14.920 --> 1:01:18.080
<v Speaker 2>many resources as possible to get to AGI, and then

1:01:18.080 --> 1:01:20.560
<v Speaker 2>that will solve climate change for us, which is ridiculous

1:01:20.560 --> 1:01:21.960
<v Speaker 2>because we don't so cool.

1:01:22.080 --> 1:01:25.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah, Like we have no responsibility for our actions

1:01:25.200 --> 1:01:26.880
<v Speaker 1>until we hand them off to someone else.

1:01:27.160 --> 1:01:30.360
<v Speaker 2>Right, So he said this, which is ridiculous for lots

1:01:30.360 --> 1:01:33.040
<v Speaker 2>of reasons, and echo stuff that Sam Altman has said, right,

1:01:33.120 --> 1:01:36.400
<v Speaker 2>It's it's ridiculous among other reasons, because like AGI is

1:01:36.440 --> 1:01:40.000
<v Speaker 2>not a thing, and also because we don't need like

1:01:40.440 --> 1:01:43.600
<v Speaker 2>we know what we need to do to solve global warming, right,

1:01:43.640 --> 1:01:44.800
<v Speaker 2>we know what we need to do to solve the

1:01:44.840 --> 1:01:47.080
<v Speaker 2>climate crisis is just a matter of actually getting everybody.

1:01:47.200 --> 1:01:49.920
<v Speaker 1>I don't need to do it, but may sam Oltman

1:01:50.080 --> 1:01:51.800
<v Speaker 1>said that they know what they need to do to

1:01:51.800 --> 1:01:54.439
<v Speaker 1>get to AGI, and then said a few months later

1:01:54.480 --> 1:01:55.919
<v Speaker 1>that agi wasn't a useful term.

1:01:56.400 --> 1:01:58.640
<v Speaker 2>Q D, Well, no, this is this is exactly what

1:01:58.680 --> 1:02:01.440
<v Speaker 2>I was about to say about right. He repeats this

1:02:01.560 --> 1:02:04.000
<v Speaker 2>claim about like just pushing as hard as we can

1:02:04.640 --> 1:02:07.840
<v Speaker 2>about a month after the last time he said it,

1:02:07.920 --> 1:02:12.880
<v Speaker 2>maybe two months. Only a few weeks ago he comes

1:02:12.920 --> 1:02:14.960
<v Speaker 2>out in the New York Times with this op ed saying, oh,

1:02:15.040 --> 1:02:18.360
<v Speaker 2>AGI is not really a thing and we shouldn't care

1:02:18.360 --> 1:02:21.680
<v Speaker 2>about it. It's like, buddy, you were saying just a

1:02:21.720 --> 1:02:24.920
<v Speaker 2>few weeks ago that this was gonna save the world

1:02:24.920 --> 1:02:27.560
<v Speaker 2>from the biggest emergency of our time, and now you're

1:02:27.600 --> 1:02:30.400
<v Speaker 2>saying it's not a thing. Do you think we're all stupid?

1:02:30.720 --> 1:02:33.480
<v Speaker 2>Are you that stupid? What the fuck is going on?

1:02:33.520 --> 1:02:35.440
<v Speaker 1>I can actually tell you. I think he thinks the

1:02:35.480 --> 1:02:38.760
<v Speaker 1>meteor is that stupid and will write and we'll publish anything.

1:02:38.800 --> 1:02:40.920
<v Speaker 2>He says. I mean to see that the New York

1:02:40.920 --> 1:02:41.680
<v Speaker 2>Times published it.

1:02:41.760 --> 1:02:44.360
<v Speaker 1>I wasn't Yeah, I would be honest. That's the least

1:02:45.280 --> 1:02:47.880
<v Speaker 1>we've got fucking Ezra Klein being like, hey, geis the

1:02:48.200 --> 1:02:53.959
<v Speaker 1>fucking Ezra Ezra? What a peculiar fella, What a peculiar fella,

1:02:54.080 --> 1:02:57.240
<v Speaker 1>Ezbra Klein is? What's going on there? You ever run

1:02:57.280 --> 1:02:58.000
<v Speaker 1>into mister Klein.

1:02:58.440 --> 1:03:00.880
<v Speaker 2>I've never met him directly, I know people who know him,

1:03:01.000 --> 1:03:04.000
<v Speaker 2>but now I think I think he just hung out

1:03:04.040 --> 1:03:06.400
<v Speaker 2>with too many tech billionaire as while he was living

1:03:06.400 --> 1:03:08.680
<v Speaker 2>in the Bay Area. He's this fucking mind poison. These

1:03:08.680 --> 1:03:11.680
<v Speaker 2>people are boring. Yeah, these people are bored.

1:03:11.720 --> 1:03:12.280
<v Speaker 1>You sit down.

1:03:12.440 --> 1:03:15.919
<v Speaker 2>They have amounts of money. And like, if you're if

1:03:15.920 --> 1:03:19.840
<v Speaker 2>you're someone who's never been cool and they have been cool,

1:03:19.840 --> 1:03:22.280
<v Speaker 2>and I've also never been cool, love it, don't I know?

1:03:22.440 --> 1:03:24.600
<v Speaker 2>But like, if you've never been cool, one of two

1:03:24.680 --> 1:03:26.960
<v Speaker 2>things happens to you as you grow up. Either you

1:03:27.240 --> 1:03:30.520
<v Speaker 2>desperately want to be cool and that can, you know,

1:03:30.560 --> 1:03:34.840
<v Speaker 2>go wrong in many different ways, like Musk and possibly

1:03:34.920 --> 1:03:37.760
<v Speaker 2>like Klein. I don't know, maybe like I'm willing to

1:03:37.800 --> 1:03:39.680
<v Speaker 2>believe that something else is going on with him. I

1:03:39.760 --> 1:03:43.120
<v Speaker 2>don't know. But or you become like us and you

1:03:43.160 --> 1:03:46.240
<v Speaker 2>stop giving a shit yeah, and you accept oh, I'm

1:03:46.280 --> 1:03:49.760
<v Speaker 2>just permanently uncool. Whatever, I'll make my way through life.

1:03:49.840 --> 1:03:52.880
<v Speaker 1>And that's the thing. It's these people are just disconnected

1:03:52.920 --> 1:03:55.200
<v Speaker 1>from humanity. None of these people seem to have friends

1:03:55.320 --> 1:03:58.360
<v Speaker 1>or loved ones, because there's just if I did any

1:03:58.400 --> 1:04:00.280
<v Speaker 1>of this whack of through shit, I would get takes

1:04:00.280 --> 1:04:02.680
<v Speaker 1>from Casey or there or any number of people love

1:04:02.800 --> 1:04:06.400
<v Speaker 1>me just like, hey, man, are you okay? Sound insane? No,

1:04:06.720 --> 1:04:09.040
<v Speaker 1>Casey would definitely not be just. But hey, yeah, what

1:04:09.120 --> 1:04:12.240
<v Speaker 1>the fuck you you okay? That doesn't make any sense.

1:04:12.840 --> 1:04:13.439
<v Speaker 2>What do you mean?

1:04:13.520 --> 1:04:15.280
<v Speaker 1>What do you mean a Dyson sphere? Do you know

1:04:15.320 --> 1:04:19.040
<v Speaker 1>what that is? A dice in sphere. It's just they

1:04:19.080 --> 1:04:21.680
<v Speaker 1>don't have friends, and I don't know if they want them.

1:04:21.720 --> 1:04:23.800
<v Speaker 1>I think it could require a certain level of vulnerability.

1:04:24.200 --> 1:04:25.960
<v Speaker 1>Have you talked twenty Have you met up with any

1:04:26.000 --> 1:04:26.960
<v Speaker 1>of them?

1:04:27.040 --> 1:04:29.440
<v Speaker 2>With the billionaires, no, I tried. There's a list at

1:04:29.440 --> 1:04:30.880
<v Speaker 2>the end of my book of all of the tech

1:04:30.920 --> 1:04:33.000
<v Speaker 2>billionaires I tried to interview and they all said no.

1:04:33.320 --> 1:04:36.640
<v Speaker 2>The only one who I successfully interviewed was like a

1:04:36.720 --> 1:04:39.880
<v Speaker 2>lower tier billionaire guy named jan to Lynn who's in

1:04:40.000 --> 1:04:43.720
<v Speaker 2>deep with the effective algist was Skype and Speaza. Yeah

1:04:43.800 --> 1:04:47.320
<v Speaker 2>yeah that's right, christ Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, can't hate

1:04:47.360 --> 1:04:48.880
<v Speaker 2>him for those are two pretty good ones.

1:04:48.920 --> 1:04:51.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly, though I will say Skype definitely one of

1:04:51.240 --> 1:04:55.520
<v Speaker 1>those inventions that I've never seen something just stop. Yeah, no,

1:04:55.840 --> 1:04:57.920
<v Speaker 1>Scott just got like no, just no, I mean trapped

1:04:57.960 --> 1:04:59.920
<v Speaker 1>in Amber. It was the same product for fifty oh yeah.

1:05:00.000 --> 1:05:01.880
<v Speaker 1>And the Microsoft are just like what Box are an

1:05:01.920 --> 1:05:05.720
<v Speaker 1>animal farm banged, it's at a glue factory with Skype.

1:05:05.880 --> 1:05:09.240
<v Speaker 1>We fucked this up well enough, It's just it's also

1:05:09.400 --> 1:05:12.680
<v Speaker 1>it's also sad. But this has been such a wonderful conversation.

1:05:12.760 --> 1:05:14.160
<v Speaker 1>Oh where can people find you?

1:05:14.840 --> 1:05:18.200
<v Speaker 2>Well, I'm on blue Sky because I don't want to

1:05:18.240 --> 1:05:21.240
<v Speaker 2>be on a platform like Ext's filled with Nazis now,

1:05:22.120 --> 1:05:23.680
<v Speaker 2>so blue sky is the best place to find me.

1:05:23.720 --> 1:05:27.640
<v Speaker 2>I'm Adam Becker dot blue sky dot social, orgy dot social.

1:05:27.800 --> 1:05:32.760
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, I got a book, is the main thing. Yeah,

1:05:32.760 --> 1:05:35.680
<v Speaker 2>I got a book called More Everything Forever linked to

1:05:35.720 --> 1:05:38.320
<v Speaker 2>it in the notes. Yeah, it is available wherever fine

1:05:38.320 --> 1:05:42.400
<v Speaker 2>books are sold. And if you liked what I had

1:05:42.440 --> 1:05:44.720
<v Speaker 2>to say on this episode, I think you'll like the book.

1:05:45.280 --> 1:05:46.760
<v Speaker 1>And if you like what I have to say on

1:05:46.800 --> 1:05:48.640
<v Speaker 1>this show, you're a sick puppy, you know where to

1:05:48.680 --> 1:05:50.640
<v Speaker 1>find me. Thank you so much for your time as ever,

1:05:50.680 --> 1:05:52.160
<v Speaker 1>I love you all. Thank you to beahet of course

1:05:52.200 --> 1:05:54.400
<v Speaker 1>here in New York City, here for producing this episode,

1:05:54.520 --> 1:05:56.840
<v Speaker 1>and of course the Madisowski, the wonderful producer at home.

1:05:57.080 --> 1:05:58.880
<v Speaker 1>I will catch you with them monologue in a few days.

1:05:58.880 --> 1:06:09.360
<v Speaker 1>Thank you so much, Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

1:06:09.480 --> 1:06:11.919
<v Speaker 1>The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song

1:06:11.960 --> 1:06:14.640
<v Speaker 1>is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music

1:06:14.640 --> 1:06:18.280
<v Speaker 1>and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T

1:06:18.280 --> 1:06:22.760
<v Speaker 1>T O S O W s ki dot com. You

1:06:22.800 --> 1:06:25.280
<v Speaker 1>can email me at easy at Better Offline dot com

1:06:25.400 --> 1:06:27.720
<v Speaker 1>or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast

1:06:27.760 --> 1:06:31.120
<v Speaker 1>links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend

1:06:31.120 --> 1:06:33.040
<v Speaker 1>you go to chat dot Where's youreed dot at to

1:06:33.120 --> 1:06:35.920
<v Speaker 1>visit the discord, and go to our slash Better Offline

1:06:35.960 --> 1:06:39.200
<v Speaker 1>to check out our reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

1:06:40.000 --> 1:06:42.720
<v Speaker 1>Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For

1:06:42.840 --> 1:06:46.000
<v Speaker 1>more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia

1:06:46.040 --> 1:06:48.919
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1:06:48.960 --> 1:07:12.200
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