The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - No Mercy / No Malice: Assist.AI

Episode Date: May 13, 2023

As read by George Hahn. https://www.profgalloway.com/AiLONE/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. I'm Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice. Decades of overpromises about digital assistance might finally be coming to fruition. But the most important life skills, forming and nurturing relationships, and learning from rejection are forged, not taught. Assist.ai, as read by George Hahn. I run two organizations. Prof G Media is a, wait for it, media company that produces books, videos, podcasts, TV shows, talks, and this newsletter. The second organization is the aircraft carrier squadron that runs my life outside of work.

The tutors, trainers, accountants, landscapers, financial planners, lawyers, nannies, health aides for my dad, dog walkers, and other professionals whose job is to make my life nicer and easier. Think Downton Abbey, except the Abbey is a Marylebone apartment and the Patriarch is much less charming. The chatter about AI has focused on how it will first change organization, the world of work, and or annihilate us. Which jobs is AI coming after first? CEO Sundar Pichai told us AI will be as good or as evil as human nature allows. Should we allow AI machines to flood the internet with propaganda and fake news?

But the most valuable tech companies to date, with the exception of Microsoft, have been consumer-facing. And it's likely the major AI disruptors will, again, be consumer offerings. One big change? The butlers, maids, and valets of the rich will be introduced to the broader world. Instead of servants downstairs, we'll have servers. Except the servers will be housed in some nondescript tilt-up building next to an inexpensive source of energy to keep it cool. Where they'll sweat plowing the fields of my indulgent life. Where I've created a series of mazes I need others to help me navigate.

Note, I'm especially proud of the previous sentence. Generative AI and smartphones and smart speakers promise the power of personal and professional assistance to everyone with an iPhone. That's good news, mostly. Technology democratizes access, good thing, but also sequesters us from one another. The tech elite are opting out voluntarily with a nihilistic vision of go-bags and bunkers. The backstory is that the performance of digital assistants might be finally catching up to the decades of promise. Emphasis on might.

MIT had a chatbot called ELISA in 1966. Computer program that anyone can converse with via the keyboard, and it'll reply on the screen. We've added human speech to make the conversation more clear. And the progress has been steady, if not remarkable. Sixty years later, we started to lose interest. The number of Americans who use voice-activated assistants declined. That's about to change.

We're on the eve of war, the AI assistant revolution. The invading AI army established a beachhead years ago. Remember paper maps? Until recently, successes were limited to AI-friendly contexts, those with a lot of structured data, limited and predictable queries, and not much nuance. Pre-ChatGPT, our AI assistants were kids. They took everything literally and needed to be set up for success. The real innovation unleashed by large language models is soft skills,

specifically their ability to manage the ambiguity of human experience. Intelligence is synonymous with nuance or the ability to recognize and deliver it. Google describes its AI mission, quote, more than answers, we'll help you when there's no right answer,

unquote. The hardest decisions in life More than answers, we'll help you when there's no right answer. Unquote. The hardest decisions in life are having to choose between the bad options rife in a difficult environment. Bare markets and bad relationships require intelligence, i.e. nuance. Bull markets and good relationships only require bravado and presence. We've learned painfully that converting any asset or substance to another for economic benefit produces externalities. Fossil fuels to energy produces carbon. Plant calories to meat calories results in deforestation and methane. The worst are the rage emissions spewed into our environment as big tech converts attention to ads. The externality, when we convert the patterns

between words to information and insight, i.e. AI, A, dehumanization. The people who invented AI, now that their options have vested, are full-time catastrophists. The man widely seen as the godfather of artificial intelligence has quit his job at Google, warning of the dangers of AI. It'll figure out ways of manipulating people to do what it wants. There's like a set of very bad outcomes.

One thing I'm particularly worried about is that these models could be used for large-scale disinformation. But they're hyping the wrong catastrophe. I'm less worried about Skynet declaring war on the species or being turned into a paperclip than an epidemic that causes more death, disease, and disability than COVID-19. Loneliness. The U.S. faces an epidemic of isolation. Loneliness among young adults has been increasing since 1976.

The increase has been steeper among those with lower incomes. Teen depression would be at similar levels given its trajectory with or without the pandemic. Put another way, COVID didn't inspire social distancing. Social media did. A more honest moniker for the sector is asocial media. Studies find that when people reduce or eliminate social media from their lives, their self-esteem and sense of connection often improve. AI-driven assistants present a similar risk. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, an impressive man who makes you feel good about America, quote,

evidence across scientific disciplines converges on the conclusion that socially connected people live longer. Unquote. Social isolation is associated with a 29% increase in the risk of heart disease and a 32% increase in the risk of stroke. Put another way, loneliness kills. A reliable indicator of how much a new tech product

will drive us apart is the intensity of the founders' promise to bring us together. Facebook's mission statement has become less recognizable than an 80s pop star's face. But the Zuck and Sheryl promised repeatedly they would connect people. So our new mission is to bring the world closer together. And for the last decade, our mission has been to make the world more open and connected. And we've been really focused on these ideas. Do we believe in a world where technology can help you feel close to someone, even when you're far apart?

They then built algorithms that send images of nooses and razor blades to 14-year-old girls experiencing suicidal ideation. Tinder aims to spark relationships, but increasingly results in sadness and anxiety. We are then told that the solution to tech's externalities is more tech. On cue, Tinder's former CEO is raising venture capital for an AI-powered relationship coach called Amorai that will offer advice to young adults struggling with loneliness. We at the Amorai team help you get regular dates by assisting you with the entire process. You know, all that frustrating swiping, texting, matching. We do it all for you. She won't be alone. Call Annie is an AI friend. You can phone or FaceTime to ask anything you want. What's the meaning of life? Hey there, that's a big question,

isn't it? I believe that a similar product replica has millions of users. AI sex robot vendors saw sales increase 50% during the pandemic, and sex tech is expected to become a $53 billion industry by 2026. So, Natalie 2.0, a sex doll, should make the same as Beyonce and Tom Cruise, as the industry she works for will approximate the scale of the combined global music and movie businesses. We've seen this movie before, literally. It was called Her. A lonely introvert in the midst of divorce purchases an advanced AI assistant that helps him with everything, from therapy to cooking to setting him up on dates. And they fall in love. You have a lot of contacts. I'm very popular.

Really? Does this mean you actually have friends? You just know me so well. Also, Ex Machina, another great film about the collusion of tech and loneliness. I'm pleased to meet you, Ava. I'm pleased to meet you, Ava. I'm pleased to meet you too. What sci-fi gets right, and the innovator class papers over with earnest TED Talks on bettering the world, is that human connection is why we're all here. And inserting AI between ourselves and those around us dulls those connections. Sex bots are a sure thing, and AI assistants are inexpensive and don't need vision and dental. Also, they are not real and don't nourish our soul.

We're not wired to live in a world where we have friends but don't experience friendship. Human relationships are about competition and compromise, about listening and bouncing off one another in unexpected ways, in person. They are about, among many things, the risk inherent in relationships. These risks include disappointment and rejection. Rejection has been key to my success, specifically my willingness

to endure it. In high school, I ran for sophomore, junior, senior class president, lost all three times. Based on my track record, I decided it made sense to run for student body president and I, wait for it, lost. I asked four girls to my high school prom and didn't go. Oh, for four. Note, I did get asked to the prom by a girl from another school. I have raised over $1 billion for my startups and investments. However, I pitched, conservatively, $100 billion in capital over the better part of a decade before raising a dollar. I was rejected initially by UCLA, but here's the thing. I recovered. More than recovered. I got stronger. And that made the victories feel more... victorious. Twenty years ago, under the glare of the midday sun, I approached a woman at the Raleigh Hotel pool who was sitting with two friends.

I was so attracted to her, I decided it was worth the risk of rejection. I'd learned that the downside doesn't present that much downside. It's risk. It's growth. It's life. AI assistants are the ultimate helicopter parent, bulldozing obstacles and the risk inherent in establishing new relationships. We are breeding a generation of asocial people who don't know what it means to be rejected, forget a name, miss a flight, and find unexpected joy. AI and mobile technology have strip-mined a key component of what it means to be human, what it means to be a mammal. Happiness is a function of your willingness to take an uncomfortable risk and have something wonderful, really wonderful happen in person. Technology offers productivity and prosperity. However, joy is in the agency of others. The most important skills are forged, not taught.

My oldest son's middle name? Rowley. Life is so rich. Hello, I'm Esther Perel, psychotherapist and host of the podcast, Where Should We Begin? Which delves into the multiple layers of relationships, mostly romantic. But in this special series, I focus on our relationships with our colleagues, business partners, and managers. Listen in as I talk to co-workers facing their own challenges with one another and get the real work done. Tune into Housework, a special series from Where Should We Begin, sponsored by Klaviyo. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Sponsored by Clayview.

Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge,

to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts.