This Past Weekend - #599 - Sam Altman

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's guest is, well, dude's a straight up tech lord, let's be honest. He's one of the leaders, the world leaders in the development of AI. He started OpenAI, which is known for having chat GPT. We had a fascinating chat about the pros and cons, the fears and hopes, everything I could learn about artificial intelligence and where we're headed. TBD, baby. Today's guest is Mr. Sam Altman, and I'm very thankful, I've been singing just for you You know, we had a residential architect do this office. We wanted it to feel like someone's really comfortable country house or something like that.

Starting point is 00:00:57 Not like the big corporate sci-fi castle. Yeah, that's what I was a little bit like, oh, is it going to be, know Will there be a drawbridge will be be uploaded into a suite like what will happen to us? Yeah, we don't want that yeah for like residential. Yeah, I was like, how do we even get through the firewall? How many like hit points will we need to get there? You know, it got very Dungeons and Dragons in some of my like Imagination sometimes we want people to feel like super comfortable and try to get pretty far in that direction. It feels like it. Your staff's very sweet, nice people. You have, thanks for hanging out, man.

Starting point is 00:01:31 Absolutely, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Yeah, I haven't seen you since I fell out of my chair. You fell out of your chair at the inauguration. That was really like quite a way to meet you. Yeah, I felt so embarrassed. And you were one of the faces that I looked up and saw and I was like, God.

Starting point is 00:01:43 And that was my first moment, like, AI built us a better chair, to be honest with you. And you were one of the faces that I looked up and saw, and I was like, God. And that was my first moment, like, AI, build us a better chair, to be honest with you. And you did nothing, right? You were just sitting there, and it just collapsed. Nothing. I remember that. And it was just so embarrassing. I was like, oh, of all people, me, and here I am in this place.

Starting point is 00:01:57 And I think it was perfect because everybody's got to have some story. And people are like, oh, what was the inauguration? Like, everybody's got to have some story to tell. Yeah. And that was an incredible story for us all to tell. That's a good point. I do remember looking at people for like, oh, what was the inauguration? Like, everybody's got to have some story to tell. Yeah. And that was an incredible story for us all to tell. That's a good point. I do remember looking at people for help, though.

Starting point is 00:02:09 And oddly, your eyes, I was like, oh my god. He could help. You did look like a beacon of help in the distance. I tried to help. You have a baby. You have a new child. It is. There have been like a lot of experiences in life where everyone tells you something's gonna be great,

Starting point is 00:02:27 and then it's like, okay, the people are right, the consensus is right. It's like even better than I thought it was going to be. But this has been the strongest example of that ever. Like, I knew it was gonna be great, and it's like way, way better. It's impossible to describe. There's nothing I can say that's not like very cliche. And it's totally amazing. What is like one of your... and it's a, you have a young boy? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:02:47 And what's something that you think is neat, or what's one thing that is bringing you joy with it? Watching the speed with which he learns new things or gains new capabilities is just unbelievable. It's like every day, it's like, oh, man, he just couldn't do that before. And now he's like grabbing stuff and passing it between his hands.

Starting point is 00:03:09 And getting to like watch it day to day is just an amazing rate of change. And then I don't like, again, I realize it's like, I realize that like everything about babies are very finely tuned over a long period of evolution to make us love them and be fascinated by them. And it's like a neurochemical hack. But I love it.

Starting point is 00:03:29 It's great. It's so strong. It's so intense. So it's really almost like a coffee for your heart or something, kind of? I don't even know how to find. I've tried to come up with an analogy to tell. Because now I'm telling everybody,

Starting point is 00:03:41 you've got to have a lot of kids. It's really important. Yeah. And I've been looking for an analogy of what to explain. And then I always just say, I don't know how to explain this. It is the best thing I've ever done by far. I feel like a completely changed person. And I was thinking the other day, there used to be all these other things.

Starting point is 00:04:00 At this point, all I do is work and hang out with my family. I don't really get to do a lot of hobbies anymore. It's a busy time at work. I don't get to hang out with my friends that much. And there were all these things that people tell you, like, oh, you got a baby coming. You got to go take that spontaneous international trip, because you're not going to be doing that again for a long time.

Starting point is 00:04:19 And I was like, oh, that is kind of sad. In practice, you don't do it that often. I at least didn't do it that often, and I don't miss it at all. I remember that that used to be a possibility. Now I can see that's not going to be a possibility for a long time, and I'm thrilled with the trade. You're moved on.

Starting point is 00:04:33 I'm so happy. How old is your child? Four months. Oh, that's a funny, like at five or six months, they start to get fun and you can, they're still like, they can't go anywhere, you know? But they're intrigued and stuff. They start to smile or process more.

Starting point is 00:04:47 I don't know how you guys say it. Yeah, he's totally turned on now. Really aware, understands things. It's super cool. I have a thought sometimes that this will be one of the last maybe 40 years that we conceive children in the body. Did you have any thoughts about that?

Starting point is 00:05:04 I've definitely heard a lot of people say that. Um, I haven't thought about it hard myself, but yeah, I guess it does make sense. Like I guess that does make sense. Like God, you were in your mom's butt. It's crazy. You know, you pervert or whatever. Like, like I think in the future, people will be, it'll be kind of done like in a, in a vat or something. Yes. In like a nice vat, you can go see it on the weekends or whatever. Doesn't that just feel like off to you? Like I can totally intellectually understand

Starting point is 00:05:33 that that may be the better way to do it. Oh yeah, it feels way off to me. I was trying to, I thought you would like it. You know, I thought. I mean. Like I thought that would be like a thought. Like I guess for me that's one of like my futuristic

Starting point is 00:05:45 thoughts, you know? Like, I can totally accept that that will be what everybody does and that it's easier and we can like make it healthier for the child and mother. Yes. The mother doesn't take the health risk. But man, so intellectually I can say that. And then like emotionally, it feels like something is off.

Starting point is 00:06:05 Feels off. Oh yeah. Yeah, because then the family, like on the weekends, the parents would come and like tinker on the glass or whatever, or their dad would put like a GoFalcon sticker on the thing. You know what I'm saying? People would decorate it all up or write little messages on there. You know, I think there's another take I have on all of this is that in this

Starting point is 00:06:26 world that we're heading to of like crazy sci-fi technology becoming reality, the sort of like the deeply human things will become the most precious sacred valued things. And that we'll really care about like the human experience more than ever. And maybe it won't go that way. I don't know. Yeah. Do you know, and that's some of the stuff we want to talk about and thanks so much, man, for sitting down.

Starting point is 00:06:49 Do you think your child will go to college? Do you think, like, what do you kind of think that looks like? Probably not, if I had to guess. Like, I think, well, I only went to half of college. You dropped out? Yeah. Dude, you guys all, I freaking dropped out. I didn't get shit.

Starting point is 00:07:04 You dropped out, Wang dropped out, Zuckerberg dropped out. And probably all I freaking dropped out. I didn't get shit You dropped out Wang dropped out Zuckerberg dropped out Probably a lot of other and you yeah Well, hey, we're both here. So I would worked out fine. You're right. You know, you're right. Never mind. I'm sorry I'm being self-defeating. Um Yeah, what does that look like when you think about that? like yeah with AI with so much new information coming online, and so much data being collected, and information being carpooled, maybe, which is a term.

Starting point is 00:07:33 So you and I never grew up in a world that didn't have computers. And our parents were like, oh, there weren't computers. And then there were, and it was this big, crazy adjustment. It took them a long time to figure it out. But to us like computers just always existed they were just I mean maybe they were kind of new but they were always around and and then like you know a kid that is like there was there was this

Starting point is 00:07:55 video on YouTube I saw like maybe 12 years ago something like that that 14 years ago that is really stuck with me it was like a little baby in a dentist waiting room or something picking up one of those old glossy magazines and going like this. Oh, I remember that. And to that kid, it was just like a broken iPad because that kid had just grown up in a world where there were touchscreens everywhere.

Starting point is 00:08:16 And my kid will never grow up, will never ever be smarter than an AI. That will never happen. Kid born a few years ago, they had a brief period of time. My kid never ever be smarter than an AI. That will never happen. Kid born a few years ago, they had a brief period of time. My kid never will be smarter. But also, they'll never know a world where products and services aren't way smarter than them

Starting point is 00:08:36 and super capable. They can just do whatever you need. And in that world, I think education is going to feel very different. I already think college is maybe not working great for most people. But yeah, I think fast is going to feel very different. I already think college is like maybe not working great for most people. But yeah, I think the past four to 18 years, it's going to look like a very, very different thing. Yeah. Yeah, do you think there will...

Starting point is 00:08:52 Oh, here's that video right here, this kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, I was wrong about the dentist. Or maybe there's a few of these. He's like, somebody charge this magazine. He's yelling. How would you recommend to a parent right now to prepare their children for like an AI future? Kind of like, are there certain curtails that you recommend to a parent right now to prepare their children for an AI future? Are there certain curtailes that you would start to put in now? Or are there certain adjustments where you get them

Starting point is 00:09:13 in a certain training or have them start to watch certain models of things online? What is that? I actually think the kids will be fine. I'm worried about the parents. If you look at the history of the world here when there's a technology, like people that grow up with it, they're always fluent.

Starting point is 00:09:27 They always figure out what to do. They always learn the new kind of jobs. But if you're like a 50-year-old and you have to like kind of learn to do things in a very different way, that doesn't always work. So I think the kids are going to be fine. I mean, I do have worries about kids in technology. Like I think this scrolling, the kind of like, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:48 short video feed dopamine hit, it feels like it's probably messing with kids' brain development in a super deep way. So it's not that I have no worries. I have like extremely deep worries about what technology is doing to kids. But in terms of kids' ability to like be prepared for the future and use a new technology, they seem really good at that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:04 Always through history. That's a good point actually. Yeah, it's like if you just grow up with it, it's just like having, it's just totally normal. It's like having kneecaps or whatever you're just kind of used to it. You can't imagine the world where it doesn't exist. You just- Right. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:18 Yeah. That's a good point. I remember when I was in school in like junior high and Google first came out. And all the teachers freaked out. And they're like, this is the end of education. Why do you have to memorize facts in history class if you can just look them up instantly on the internet? You don't even have to learn to go to the library.

Starting point is 00:10:37 And the answer is, yeah, maybe memorization is less important. But with these new tools, you can think better, come up with new ideas, do new stuff. I'm sure the same thing happened with the calculator before. And now this is just a new tool that exists in the tool chain. And what about, say if there is somebody that's learning history right now,

Starting point is 00:10:54 like they just started their second year of college. Oh, that Celsius, yeah, that thing will definitely, you won't be able to blink for a month, homie. That thing will, yeah. You'll sneeze and release 5.0, dude. You'll freaking, are you guys at 4.5 already? We're at 4.5 already. 5.0 is, I think it's going to be great.

Starting point is 00:11:08 Oh, it'll come out fast if you had that Celsius. I'm just saying you poor. Maybe the researchers needed not me, but you know, we'll get them some. Yeah, that thing will get you there, man. So say there's somebody, just for example, like there's learning history right now. They're in their second year of college.

Starting point is 00:11:19 They're good. They're taking history. Is that, are there some subjects in like, like they're going to're taking history is that are there some subjects in like like they're gonna be a historian is that still a viable space of work as AI moves forward do you think honestly I assume there will be some version of it that is I I think it's very hard to predict exactly how something evolves. Or predict exactly what the jobs of the future are going to be. Like, not that long ago, it would have been very hard to predict either of our jobs.

Starting point is 00:11:56 If you go back 100 years, the idea of this CEO of an AI company or a podcaster probably would have been things that didn't seem to be the most obvious evolutions of the things people were doing at the time. Yeah, you just seemed almost probably crazy even in trying to explain those to someone. You would. And now, in fact, two of the job,

Starting point is 00:12:17 I heard that the job that young people most want is some version of your job. The job that young people most want is to be a podcast influencer, YouTube, they want a YouTube channel, like whatever it is, like six, seven years, they don't know how to describe it, but that's what they want. And a lot of people also want my job.

Starting point is 00:12:34 They want to do like a startup or they want to work on AI and these just didn't exist. So like the rate with which the new things come along is fast and also trying to predict what they are. I don't know. The thing I say all the time is no one knows what happens next. It's like we're going to figure this out. It's this weird emergent thing.

Starting point is 00:12:52 Does the current job of a historian exist in the same way? I'll bet not quite. But another thing I believe is that humans are obsessed with other people. We are so deeply wired to care about other people, to care about stories and history, our own history, is extremely interesting to us. So I would say somehow or other, we're still going to care about that. There's going to be some kind of job doing that. Man, that's cool.

Starting point is 00:13:15 I guess I, if, when I take that avenue of thought, like, okay, there will still be this historian or somebody, it'll be some evolution of that, right? That does seem kind of cool to me because there's a level of creativity in there There's a level of like faith and spontaneity in there that I think is kind of exciting So yeah, I guess i'd only thought about that as soon as I get stuck in this doomsday thing Like I just see like, you know, like the history book closes and they're like we have enough We have all the history over here. You know? You know, people used to say like, oh, there's no need for more music. We've made perfect music.

Starting point is 00:13:48 Like, why does anyone need anyone to create anymore? And that's obviously ridiculous. Or they would say there's that famous patent office quote, everything that humans ever possibly need has been invented. There's nothing left to do. I have heard that. But here we are. Here we are.

Starting point is 00:14:00 And like, someone asked me the other day, like, you know, how long is it until you can make like a AI, AI CEO for OpenAI? And I was like, probably not that long. And they were like, well, aren't you really sad about that? And I was like, no, I think it's awesome. I'm for sure going to figure out something else to do. I'm excited to do that.

Starting point is 00:14:16 Like, I think that's great. Right. So you could create something that would have your job, but then you could do something else. Totally. But then how do you know that you'll still get paid have your job, but then you could do something else. Totally. But then how do you know that you'll still get paid for your job, I guess? Like, that's kind of a big question.

Starting point is 00:14:32 I kind of think that- But yeah, I guess the framing of that question might be better, like say there are jobs that get curtailed by- There will be some. Okay. I think it's important to be honest about that. There will be some jobs that totally go away.

Starting point is 00:14:43 But mostly, I think we will rely on the fact that people's desire for more stuff, for better experiences, for, you know, a higher social status or whatever, that seems basically limitless. Human creativity seems basically limitless and human desire to like be useful to each other and to connect with each other and do stuff for each other and focus on other people seems pretty limitless too. So I think throughout all of history there have been these predictions like, ah, you know, we're going to all be on the beach and work an hour a day or hour a week or whatever

Starting point is 00:15:18 and we're going to have unlimited wealth. And I've never heard that one. I love that. I mean, they used to say this. They used to say, like, the Industrial Revolution, people were like, oh, you know, we just figured out how to automate, like, man's lot in life. There's nothing left to do.

Starting point is 00:15:31 We're going to have these machines do all the work. Oh, it makes sense, probably. And you watch these machines doing all this stuff that only people used to physically do. And everybody panicked and said, there's going to be no more jobs. And we figured out new stuff to want. Now, here's an interesting thing. If you could go back to that industrial revolution time

Starting point is 00:15:48 and people before that were really on the grind, working super hard trying to have enough food to survive, go back to those people. Look at our jobs today. Would those people say we have real jobs? Or would they say, you have unbelievable abundance, unbelievable wealth, so much food to eat, incredible luxury,

Starting point is 00:16:07 and you guys are just playing a game to entertain yourselves. Is that a real job or not? And they would probably say, where they sit, what you guys do is not a real job. You guys are, you know, you're too rich. You're wasting your time. You're trying to like... Yeah, you guys are a couple of dang zest lords out there freaking playing Uno in the park or whatever.

Starting point is 00:16:24 They would not, I don't think my grandfather would be like, you have a job, he would still be like, you need to get a job. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And when we look forward another hundred years at what people are doing, they'll probably think they're working very hard. It'll feel very satisfying, very intense to them. They're really like, they'll feel engaged.

Starting point is 00:16:39 They'll be making people happy. They'll be creating value for each other. But if we could look forward that hundred years at those guys, do you think we would say they're working or like, man, you have like AI doing everything for other. But if we could look forward that 100 years at those guys, do you think we would say they're working? Or like, man, you have AI doing everything for you, you're just trying to entertain yourselves. Yeah, like, oh, you guys have it so easy.

Starting point is 00:16:52 Right. But I think that's beautiful. I think it's great that those people in the past think we have it so easy. I think it's great that we think those people in the future have it so easy. Like, that is the beautiful story of us all contributing to human progress and everybody's lives getting better

Starting point is 00:17:04 and better. Say we're able to get to that space, right? Like the movement that happens with AI and with just technology which will advance quicker, I think, which is one thing that AI feels like to me it's a fast-forward button on technology and on possibility because things can be, information can be quantified so quick and a lot of like more menial tasks, even though they're not really menial in people's lives, but menial hypothetically can be done quicker

Starting point is 00:17:31 to get a lot of the framework for things done fast. But how will people survive? How do we adjust our structure of, if some people own the companies that have the AI and then a lot of people are just using the AIs and the agents created by AIs to do things for them, how will society, like societal members, still be able to financially survive?

Starting point is 00:17:56 Will there still be money? What is that? Does that make any sense, that question? It totally makes sense. OK, sorry. I don't know. Neither does anybody else. But I'll tell you my current best guess.

Starting point is 00:18:04 OK. Well, I'll say two guesses. One, I think it is possible that we put GPT-7 or whatever in everybody's chat GPT. Everybody gets it for free. And everybody has access to just this crazy thing, such that everybody can be more productive, make way more money.

Starting point is 00:18:21 It doesn't actually matter that you don't own the cluster itself. But everybody gets to use it. And it turns out even getting to use it is enough that people are getting richer, faster, and more distributed than ever before. That could happen. I think that really is possible.

Starting point is 00:18:35 There's another version of this where the most important things that are happening are these systems are discovering new cures for diseases, new kinds of energy, new ways to make spaceships, whatever. And most of that value is accruing to the like cluster owners, us, just so that I'm not dodging the question here. And then I think society will very quickly say, okay, we got to have some new economic model where we share that and distribute that to people. I used to be really excited about things like UBI. I still am kind of excited, like universal basic income, where you just give everybody money.

Starting point is 00:19:11 Yeah, you hear that term a lot. Yeah, universal basic income. Yeah, I heard you and Rogan talk about that too, a while back. I still am kind of excited about that, but I think people really need agency. They really need to feel like they have a voice in governing the future and deciding where things go. And I think if you just like say, okay, AI is going to do everything and then everybody gets like a, you know, dividend from that, it's not going to feel good. And I don't think it actually would be good for people. So I think we need to find a way where we're not just like, if we're in this world, where we're not just distributing money or wealth.

Starting point is 00:19:47 Like actually, I don't just want like a check every month. What I would want is like a ownership share, you know, whatever the AI creates so that I feel like I'm participating in this thing that's going to come out and get more valuable over time. So I sort of like universal basic wealth better than universal basic income.

Starting point is 00:20:02 And I think I don't like basic either. I want like universal extreme wealth better than universal basic income. And I think I don't like basic either. I want like universal extreme wealth for everybody. But even then, like, I think what people really want is the agency to kind of co-create the future together. And in a world where it's like the AI is mostly coming up with the new scientific inventions, at least we've got to still have humans like invent the new culture,

Starting point is 00:20:26 and have that be a very distributed thing. Okay, I guess, yeah, I see what you're saying, would that be like an American thing, do you think? Like since they were invented here, or do you think, I'm just wondering, what does that look like, you know? The economic model of it all, or the whole thing? Yeah, or like, is there a dividend of the company that sin is divided up between The masses sort of I mean a crazy idea

Starting point is 00:20:51 But in the spirit of crazy ideas is that if the world there's like eight roughly eight billion people in the world if the world can generate like Eight quintillion tokens per year if that's. Actually, let's say the world can generate 20 quintillion tokens per year. Tokens of? Like each word generated by an AI. Just making up a huge number here. We'll say, okay, 12 of those go to the normal capitalistic system, but 8 of those, 8 quintillion tokens, are going to get divided up equally among 8 billion people.

Starting point is 00:21:24 So everybody gets 1 trillion tokens. And that's your kind of universal basic wealth globally. And people can sell those tokens. Like if I don't need mine, I can sell them to you. We could pull ours together for some like new art project we want to do. But instead of just like getting a check, everybody on earth is getting like a slice of the world's AI capacity, and then we're letting the like massively distributed human ingenuity and creativity and economic engine do its thing. I mean, that's like a crazy idea, maybe it's a bad one,

Starting point is 00:21:54 but that's the kind of thing that I think sounds like someone should think about it more. One of the big fears is like purpose, right? Like human purpose, like work gives us purpose. And also I think the idea that we are the ones advancing humanity gives us purpose. Like we are the, like, yeah, like we have some control over our own destiny maybe, gives us this sense of purpose.

Starting point is 00:22:21 And it feels like that we would lose a sense of purpose or that purpose would be adjusted like if AI is to really, you know, continue to advance so quickly. It feels like our sense of purpose would start to really disappear. Have you had thoughts about that? I worry about this a lot. So I think people have worried about this with every big technological revolution, but I agree that this time it feels different.

Starting point is 00:22:44 Like okay, yeah, because if say you had an axe and something like came out with a saw, I've worried about this with every big technological revolution, but I agree that this time it feels different. Like, okay, yeah, because if say you had an axe and something like him out the saw, you're like, you're like, yeah, that's or even if they come out with like a robot that cuts the tree down, it still feels fine. But like, creativity, intelligence, I think, cuts so deeply at the core of whatever we are and how we value ourselves. One example we can look at this right now, I think one area where AI is having a big impact is on how people write software for a living.

Starting point is 00:23:11 And AI is really good at that. It's really changed what it means to be a software developer. I haven't heard any of those software developers say that even though their job is different, that they don't have meaning. They still enjoy it. They're operating at a higher level. And I'm hopeful, at least for a long time,

Starting point is 00:23:29 100 years from now, who knows. But I'm hopeful that that's what it'll feel like with AI is, even if we're asking it to solve huge problems for us, even if we ask it to say, go discover a cure for cancer, there will still be a lot of things to do in that process that feel valuable to a person. You'll still ask it the questions, you're still like helping guide it, you're still framing it or whatever it is,

Starting point is 00:23:54 you're still like talking to the world about it. And I think all of human history suggests that we find a way to put ourselves at the center of the story and feel really good about it. Like, you know, if you kind of think like we used to think that the earth was the center of the solar system, and then we're like very human centric view. And then we're like, OK, fine, the sun is the center of the solar system. But the solar system is at least the center of the galaxy. And now, oh man, there's a lot of galaxies. And oh man, now we're this like tiny speck in this like very huge universe.

Starting point is 00:24:31 And yet we still manage to feel all like a lot of main character energy. And so I somehow think even in a world where AI is doing all of this stuff that humans used to do, we are going to find a way in our own telling of the story to feel like the main characters. And I think in an important sense, we will be. And that's really good. I also like, you know, probably already today, there could be a very compelling version

Starting point is 00:24:59 of two AIs talking like this. And I don't think I'd want to watch that. Like, I think I would want to watch that. Like I think I really do feel deeply wired to like care about the real person behind it. I think that's like deep in the biology. Right. Yeah, that's the part I think a lot of times it's like,

Starting point is 00:25:15 even though you can get into like these wormholes of like possibility and these fear holes of possibility or kind of this dystopian ideas that in the end I'm like, I'd rather probably watch something that's real, you know? It's like, because I'm real, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't want to talk really to a robot. I'd, you know, yeah, I think in the end,

Starting point is 00:25:37 there's going to be a part of you that wants to continue to just talk to, talk to humans. Do you, what's like one of your fears? Like what's a fear you have of AI? Like if you have like a fearful space that it could go? Like I know you mentioned a little bit. This morning I was testing our new model and I got a question, I got emailed a question

Starting point is 00:25:59 that I didn't quite understand. And I put it in the model, this GPT-5, and it answered it perfectly. And I really kind of sat back in my chair. And I was just like, oh, man, here it is moment. And I got over it quickly. I got busy on to the next thing. But it was like, I mean, it's what kind of we're talking about.

Starting point is 00:26:22 I felt like useless relative to the AI in this thing that I felt like I should have been able to do and I couldn't and it was really hard, but the AI just did it like that. Yeah. It was a weird feeling. Yeah, I think that's, I think that feeling right there, that's the feeling a lot of people kind of have like, what's going to, you know, when does it happen? What's going to happen?

Starting point is 00:26:44 But I think some of it is it's like, yeah, is, it's hard to conceptualize until you're further along. Totally. I don't think we know quite how that's going to feel. You just have to approach it step by step. Another thing I'm afraid of, and we had a real problem with this earlier, but it can get much worse, is just what this is going to mean for users' mental health. There's a lot of people that talk to ChatGBT all day long.

Starting point is 00:27:15 There are these sort of new AI companions that people talk to, like they would a girlfriend or a boyfriend. And we were talking earlier about how it's probably not been good for kids to grow up on the dopamine hit of scrolling, you know, TikTok or whatever. Yeah, do you think that how do you keep AI from having that same effect, like that negative effect that social media really has had? I'm scared of that. I don't have an answer yet.

Starting point is 00:27:39 I don't think we know quite the ways in which it's going to have those negative impacts. But I feel for sure it's going to have some. and we'll have to, I hope we can learn to mitigate it quickly. Can AIs, can they pull up pornography and stuff like that too or no? Sure. Oh my God. God, I didn't know that.

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Starting point is 00:31:19 People talk about the most personal shit in their lives to chat GPT. People use it, young people especially, use it as a therapist, a life coach, having these relationship problems, what should I do? And right now, if you talk to a therapist or a lawyer or a doctor about those problems, there's legal privilege for it. There's doctor-patient confidentiality, there's legal confidentiality, whatever.

Starting point is 00:31:42 And we haven't figured that out yet for when you talk to chat GPT. So if you go talk to chat GPT about your most sensitive stuff and then there's like a lawsuit or whatever, like we could be required to produce that. And I think that's very screwed up. I think we should have like the same concept of privacy for your conversations with AI

Starting point is 00:31:59 that we do with a therapist or whatever. And no one had to think about that even a year ago. And now I think it's this huge issue of, how are we going to treat the laws around this? Well, do you think there should be kind of like a slowing things down before we move there? Because yeah, that is kind of wild. It's one of the reasons I get scared sometimes

Starting point is 00:32:18 to use certain AI stuff, because I don't know how much personal information I want to put in, because I don't know who's going to have it. I think we need this point addressed with some urgency. And the policymakers I've talked to about it broadly agree. It's just it's new and now we've got to do it quickly. Do you talk to Chachipiti? I don't talk to it that much.

Starting point is 00:32:38 It's because of this? I think it is. It's because it's like. I think it makes sense. To not talk to Chachipiti? No, no, no, to really want the privacy clarity before you use it a lot. Like the legal clarity. Yeah, it's scary. And it's like, well, how long does it take lawmakers to come up with that?

Starting point is 00:32:53 And then it feels like it's moving so fast that it doesn't even matter. That sometimes it's like it doesn't even really matter. It's like, are we even waiting for the laws to be put around this? Or what's going on? Does it feel like it's moving too fast for you sometimes? The last few months have felt very fast. It feels faster and faster, but the last few months have felt very fast. Yeah, I was watching this guy, Yoshua Bengio? Yoshua Bengio.

Starting point is 00:33:18 Yoshua Bengio. And he's kind of like, some people call him the father of AI. He may be self-proclaimed. I'm not really sure. But he certainly seemed to be kind of like a lifeguard for AI, like thinking about like, well, you know, how do we keep the pool safe? You know, how much water should be in it? You know, the chlorine, what, you know,

Starting point is 00:33:35 how many lifeguards do you need on duty? That type of thing, hypothetically. And he said, and he was saying that some AIs, they have like deception techniques inside of them, like that there were AIs that would rather give you an answer that was possibly pleasing to the user than to give them the factual answer. And then he was also saying that there were AIs

Starting point is 00:34:02 that were developing some of their own languages to communicate with each other, which would be languages that we don't even know. What is that? How do you guys curtail that when those types of things come up, what does that even kind of feel like to you guys? Are these just problems that happen in new spaces and you figure it out as you go? You know, there are these moments in the history of science where you have a group of scientists look at their creation and just say, what have we done?

Starting point is 00:34:31 Maybe it's great. Maybe it's bad. But what have we done? Maybe the most iconic example is thinking about the scientists working on the Manhattan Project in 1945, sitting there watching the Trinity Test and just this thing that had, it was a completely new, not human scale kind of power and everyone knew it was going to reshape the world.

Starting point is 00:34:54 And I do think people working on AI have that feeling in a very deep way. You know, we just don't know, like, we think it's going to be great. There's clearly real risks. It kind of feels like you should be able to say something more than that. But in truth, I think all we know right now is that we have discovered, invented, whatever you want to call it, something extraordinary that

Starting point is 00:35:18 is going to reshape the course of human history. Dear God, man. But if you don't know, we don't know. Well, of course. I mean, I. But if you don't know, we don't know. Well of course. I mean, I think no one can predict the future. Like, human society is very complex. This is an amazing new technology. Maybe a less dramatic example than the atomic bomb is when they discovered the transistor

Starting point is 00:35:39 a few years later. The transistor radio? The little transistor part that, you know, made computers and radios and everything else. But we discovered this completely new thing that enabled the whole computer revolution and is in this microphone and those computers and our iPhones and like. The world would be so different if people had not discovered that and then over the decades figured out how to make them smaller and more efficient. And now we don't even think about it because the transistors are just everything.

Starting point is 00:36:02 We have all this modern technology from that one scientific discovery. And I do think that's what AI is going to be like. We had this one crazy scientific discovery that led to these language models we all use now. And that is going to change the course of society in all kinds of ways. And of course, we don't know what they all are. Damn. I was hoping you knew by the end of that sentence.

Starting point is 00:36:26 Or I was hoping you would, you know, like that's where we're, because we don't know, you know, like that's I think the tough thing. There's no time in human history at the beginning of a century where the people ever knew what the end of the century was going to be like.

Starting point is 00:36:39 Yeah. So maybe it's, I do think it was faster and faster each century. I certainly like, you know, in 1900 you couldn't have predicted what 2000 was going to be like. I think in 2000 you could even less predict what 2100 was going to look like. But that's kind of why it's exciting. And that's kind of why people get to figure out and unfold the story as we go.

Starting point is 00:36:59 It's kind of bizarre because there's a part of me that's like, this guy's out of his mind. This guy is a wild wizard. You know, there's a part of me that's like, this guy's out of his mind. This guy is a wild wizard. You know, there's a couple of different things. But then there's also this part of me that's like, this guy is this hopeful guy who's like involved in this crazy space. And he kind of has this whimsical energy about the future, which is in a crazy way, a nice energy to have about the future generally

Starting point is 00:37:26 is that something could happen or that things are possible. So it just, yeah, it's all kind of like, I don't know, it's fascinating. It's definitely fascinating to me. Sam, to kind of pivot a little bit, it feels like there's a race right now in AI, right? Would you say that there's a race between companies in AI? It certainly feels that way.

Starting point is 00:37:46 Yeah. And it almost feels like you guys are the new Formula One drivers, or you guys are like the new like, it's like Mario Andretti, or you guys are the new like, Bubba Watts and all that, you know. It's almost like these are the new race cars that everybody's kind of watching position themselves. What is the race for? Because you hear about AI, and then you hear about AGI.

Starting point is 00:38:13 And then you hear about super intelligence. What is this race that's going on? How real is it? And what is the race for? When I was a kid, the race was like the megahertz race, and then it became the gigahertz race. Everybody wanted a computer with a faster processor. And Intel would come out with this one,

Starting point is 00:38:29 and then AMD would come out with this one. And it turned out that those gigahertz measurements eventually were not even that helpful. You could have one that had a lower number, and in practice it was faster. And eventually, I think it was Apple that realized they should just stop talking about the clock speed of their computers. And you probably don't even know what the processor

Starting point is 00:38:50 speed of your iPhone is today. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, that was a big thing and it kind of disappeared. And I think the same thing has been happening in AI, where everybody was racing on these benchmarks. You know, I score this on this benchmark and this on that one. And now people are realizing that like, OK, the benchmarks are kind of saturated.

Starting point is 00:39:07 We went through the equivalent of our megahertz race with our benchmark race. And now people kind of don't care about that as much. And now it's like, who's using the model? Who's getting the value out of it? Things like that. But I do think people still feel like we're heading towards some milestone. What the milestone is they disagree on, but maybe it's a system that's capable of doing its own AI research and its own sort of self-improvement. Maybe it's a system that is like smarter than all

Starting point is 00:39:39 of humans put together, but they feel like there is some finish line to cross. I actually don't quite feel like this, but I think a lot of people in the industry, that there's some finish line that we're going to cross. Maybe it's this like self-improvement moment, maybe you call that super intelligence. And I think there is a sort of, there's like a race to get somewhere, but people don't agree on where it's to or something. What are you racing towards you feel like? It's a great question. I don't have like a finish line in mind. There's nothing I

Starting point is 00:40:14 could say that I don't think I can articulate anything where I would say like this is mission complete. But if I had to give like a self-referential answer there, you know, the moment where we would rather give our research cluster, like our GPUs that we run all of our AI experiments on, the moment where we would rather give that to an AI researcher rather than our brilliant team of human researchers, that does at least seem like some kind of very different new era. Yeah, and at that point, who's even we? I feel like it's just you kind of very different new era.

Starting point is 00:40:45 Yeah, and at that point, who's even we? I feel like it's just you kind of like wheeling the stuff across the hall. And you know, like who's going to, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know what I'm saying? It starts to get this idea, like if we keep, if things were to keep leaving the people and go to the computer, you just shoveling coal into the AI,

Starting point is 00:41:03 hypothetically, you know? Again, I assume that what will happen, like with every other kind of technology, is we'll realize, there's this one thing that the tool's way better than us at. Now we've got to go solve some other problems. So let's put our brain power there. I don't think it'll ever feel like we all just get to push a button and go on vacation.

Starting point is 00:41:21 Got it. push a button and go on vacation. Got it. Like, we will, I think as, one version of this is as capabilities go up, because as we get better tools, the expectation goes way up too. And so we've got to like, yes, we get much better tools, but we have to do way more to remain competitive. Well, I think there's this hopeful idea.

Starting point is 00:41:40 Say if you come up with all these. Or maybe not. Like, maybe the AI is just better than us at absolutely everything. We just said to everybody, like, all right, that was these. Or maybe not. Maybe the AI is just better than us at absolutely everything. We just start to have it in mind. All right, that was cool. Yeah, because at a certain point, if something has all the information,

Starting point is 00:41:51 if something has all the information and it can think and ponder and pontificate and serve multi-options of answers, don't we then work in for that thing? That's what I start to wonder. If it's the smartest thing in the room. GPT-5 is the smartest thing. GPT-5 is smarter than us in almost every way.

Starting point is 00:42:10 You know? And yet, here we are. So there's like, there's something about the way the world works. There's something about, this doesn't mean it's true forever, but there's something about what humans can do today that is so different.

Starting point is 00:42:23 There's also something about what humans care about today that is so different than AI. That I don't think that simplistic thing quite works. Now, again, by the time it's a million times smarter than us, who knows? Is part of you want to kind of get there? Like, how do we get where like I open the door and I say, excuse me, sir. And it's just my computer in there. You know what I'm saying like you know when when I was a kid I I sort of thought about these technological revolutions that happened one at a time there was the agriculture revolution a

Starting point is 00:42:56 long time ago and that freed us up to do these other things and then there was the like there was the age of enlightenment and there was the Industrial Revolution and there was the Industrial Revolution, and there was the Computer Revolution, and all these things happened. And I thought of them as like these distinct things. And now I view it as just this one long compounding exponential where all of these things come together. Each piece of technology is built continuously, overlapping on the one that comes before,

Starting point is 00:43:22 and we're able to just do more and more. And so in some sense, AI is this big, special, unique, different thing. And in some other sense, it is just part of this long arc of human progress. We talked about the transistor earlier, but like, that was way more important in some sense to AI happening than the work we do now. And all this stuff has to like compound and compound. You've got to build the internet, you've got to get all this data, you've got to do all these things.

Starting point is 00:43:45 And I want that exponential to keep going. There will be things way after AI. We'll invent all sorts of new things. We'll go colonize space. We'll go build neural interfaces. Who knows what else we'll do. But I think at some point, AI fades into that arc of history. We don't even think about it.

Starting point is 00:44:04 It's like transistors, which we don't even think about today. It's just another layer in the scaffolding that humans collectively have built up bit by bit over time. And where you sit in our day, you get to open that door. You have this computer that only has one interface. It says, what do you want? You say whatever you want, it happens. And you figure out amazing new things

Starting point is 00:44:24 to build for the next generation and the next and the next. And we just keep going. I think the part that I think gets spooky is I can't build any. I can build some stuff, but I can't build any technological stuff. So then I'm like, dang, dude, well, I'm not going to. What am I going to build over there?

Starting point is 00:44:43 So right now, I can write software, maybe you can't. And I have a little advantage if I wanna go build some technological thing. Very soon, you can make any piece of software you want. Because you just ask an AI in English, you say, I got an idea for an app, make me this thing. And the whole thing just happens. So that's a win for you.

Starting point is 00:44:58 Maybe it's a little bit of a loss for me. I think it's kind of cool for the whole world. But like, this is gonna be a technology that anybody can use. You can just, with natural language, you can say, this is what I want. And it goes off and writes the code for you, debugs it for you, deploys it for you. And then you can say, how do I use what I just created?

Starting point is 00:45:17 Yeah. But if you have a great idea, I'll just make it happen for you. And this is a new thing. I think this will make technology the most accessible it ever has been. Got it. OK, then that seems a little bit different.

Starting point is 00:45:28 I think there's this idea in my head that I'm going to have to figure out all this coding. I'm going to have to figure out all of these different ways to do things to even have a possibility of use of myself in the future. No, I think this is, without talking too much about the future and what we're going to launch, the fact that you will be able to have an entire piece of software

Starting point is 00:45:49 created just by explaining your idea is going to be incredible for humans getting great new stuff. Because right now, I think there's a lot more good ideas than people who know how to make them. And if AI can do that for us, we're really good at coming up with creative ideas. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that people like to do.

Starting point is 00:46:08 Do you think right now if humans, regular average humans, most humans, could vote to keep AI going or to stop AI, what do you think that they... That's a great question. What do you think that they would vote? This is like totally kind of... I don't have any data for this. I would bet most people who use ChachiPT, which is a lot of people now, they would say like, keep it going. And most people who don't would say, it's scary, stop it.

Starting point is 00:46:31 What do you think? Yeah, I feel like most people would say, stop it, I think. Or pause it, take the wheels off of it for a month, that kind of thing, siphon the gas out of the tank, you know, like that kind of thing, put sugar in it. I think there would be like that kind of thing, siphon the gas out of the tank, you know, like that kind of thing, put sugar in it. I think there would be like that kind of thing, you know. What are you most afraid of with it? Or is it just that we're not going to have purpose and we don't know how it's all going

Starting point is 00:46:52 to go? Yeah, I mean, those are some of the huge parts. But I think like, there's like, probably that I think that in the end, I think there's a general feeling of like, well, if all the trucking jobs disappear, you know, if those become automated and, um, and like, yeah, if everything becomes a robo tax, like, you know, will that feel, you know, where will those people go for jobs? Will everybody just be dancing on Tik TOK trying to get people to tip them for trends and stuff, you know, like there's part of that.

Starting point is 00:47:23 I had this dream years ago that it all ends with everybody's driving an Uber and literally holding each other at gunpoint to be each other's passengers, right? Like get in my car. Cause that's how bad like somebody's like, I need to fare more than you do. You know, my whole family's in the backseat sit shotgun. We'll get you to where, you know, like people are literally holding each other at gunpoint to subscribe to their only fans and stuff. Like it's just that, um, dystopian or whatever.

Starting point is 00:47:50 Um, so I guess part of that, but then there's a deeper part where it's like, yeah, what comes out of us if it feels like a lot of the regular stuff that gives us purpose that we know right now gives us purpose? Is there a new evolution of our purpose? Is there like a blooming inside of us? Is it this utopian place that you almost think of as like a heaven idea where, you know, people are fed and have enough, you know, can are provided for, can take care of themselves. I guess that's it. Cause purpose gives people work, work gives people so much of their purpose

Starting point is 00:48:29 and so for to lose those things, what happens? And I know I kind of keep asking that over and over again, you don't really have the answers and that's okay. Of course, how could you? We're not in the future. I mean, I think people really do love to be useful to each other and people love to express their creativity as part of that.

Starting point is 00:48:49 And as the long-term trend of society getting richer has continued, more people, I think, are able to do, get closer to sort of expressing themselves in the best way that they can. Maybe like, you know, as recently as five or six hundred years ago, not very many people got to be artists. The world wasn't that rich. There were a limited number of patrons that could like pay you to create art, but there were more than zero.

Starting point is 00:49:20 And before that, there were almost none. And then you got this beautiful Italian Renaissance and all of this amazing art, because there was excess capital in the world. And now, a lot more people can be artists, or a lot more people can start startups, which is another. For me, that's my expression of creativity. Or more people can create content. And this idea that people can find whatever way they can

Starting point is 00:49:47 to express themselves, their talent, their vision, for kind of collective love of other people, and a care for putting their brick in society's progress. I think that can go really far. Now, what art in the future looks like, that AI can make art or help make art? I don't know. It'll probably be kind of different. What startups will look like in the future when people can kind of just say whatever they want to their AI and it can make this off of them right then. It will kind of be different.

Starting point is 00:50:17 But I think it's such a bad bet to assume that either human creativity or human fulfillment from being useful to other people ends. I think we're just we stand this exponential and like each year, each decade, our collective standard of living goes way up. The whole world gets way richer. We all get more. We all expect more. And even over like the course, I was thinking recently, like food is so much better than it is when I was a kid.

Starting point is 00:50:48 The world has just figured out how to make food better. We figured out organic vegetables or whatever it is. I don't know, it just tastes much better. And I think that's great. I don't want to go back to eating the frozen carrots or whatever. Yeah, I guess that's a good point. But then there's some, I saw this thing the other day, it was a kitchen, they had one of those robo kitchens or whatever. You know when you order food from like something dash or whatever? And then you, but it's like Hank's ribs. And then it's like Marty's pizza.

Starting point is 00:51:17 And then it's like Susan's salami shop. But they're all the same place, you know? And when you get that from Window Dash, you feel like something's missing, right? You're like, ah, this is fake, I can tell. I get less enjoyment. You would rather get that food from the dude who's been making it and perfecting it

Starting point is 00:51:39 on that little pizza shop on the corner for the last 20 years. Because that dude is part of the experience, that authenticity is part of the experience. Right. I don't think that goes away with the like fake robotic thing. Okay. Yeah, because I think I start to feel like we're in this universe where it's like, you're walking down the street or something and like a Waymo goes by and it's like,

Starting point is 00:51:58 eat now and you're like, but, and you already did eat, it's just got a bad reading or something, it's got a bad valve in it or something, you're like yelling at it, there's nobody in there, and you're like, I already ate, it's just got a bad reading or something. It's got a bad valve in it or something You're like yelling at it. There's nobody in there and you're like, I already ate it's like sit down and eat now And it just like fucking uses like a t-shirt can to just like shoot a burrito at yours And then you're sitting there you're eating that you know, and then the GLP car goes by right says I can help you out Yes, and it's like obviously you've overeat You're like, I didn't even want to eat. That thing's messed up.

Starting point is 00:52:26 You're yelling at a car that has no driver in it. And then it shoots you with three GLP-1 darts in the neck. And now your wife doesn't even recognize you when you get home or whatever. The fact that you find this so off putting, I think, is a sign for optimism. Yeah. Like, you're wired.

Starting point is 00:52:44 You're going to be resistant to that. That's not going to make you happy. That's not going to make other people happy. Now, maybe we get tricked. Like, social media tricked us for a while. We got too addicted to feeds, whatever. But we realized, like, actually, this is not helping me be my best. You know, like, doing the equivalent of getting the, like, burrito cannon

Starting point is 00:53:02 into my mouth on my phone at night. That's not making me long term happy. And that's not helping me really accomplish my true goals in life. And I think if AI does that, people will reject it. However, if Chachi BT really helps you to figure out what your true goals in life are and then accomplish those, it says, hey,

Starting point is 00:53:21 you've said you want to be a better father, or you want to be in better shape, or you want to be a better father or a better, you know, you want to be in better shape or you want to like grow your business. If you want, we can change that goal and I can help you scroll TikTok all night or, you know, eat the burritos or whatever and I'll give you the GLP one shot and I'll make you as healthy as you can. But like maybe instead I can try to help convince you should go for a run tonight. And I think if AI feels like it is helping you try to accomplish your goals and be your best,

Starting point is 00:53:49 that will feel very different than the last generation of technology. Yeah. And you know what, and that's where I'm like, and that's where a kid growing up right now, to them that would probably, some young people might be like, that makes the most sense.

Starting point is 00:54:00 I'm a little older generation, I might be like, oh, that seems a little, but that's always how things are with generation to generation. It's always how to generation. Yeah. You're right. And maybe this is just like a quicker evolution of things. And for young people, it's going to make so much sense. And for older people, it's an end. You're just going to get off my, you know, avatar lawn or something, you know? But that's the way of societal progress. Right. How it goes. Good point. You know, it's an interesting time for business.

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Starting point is 00:55:50 and governance, right? And I know we touched on it a little bit earlier. And there were people like lobbying and Trump had a big, beautiful bill for like a 10-year ban on state legislation against AI. What do you think about that? Like letting it be this rogue space? There have to be some rules here.

Starting point is 00:56:11 There has to be some guidelines. There has to be some sort of regulation at some point. I think it would be a mistake to let each state do this kind of crazy patchwork of stuff. I think like one countrywide approach would be much easier for us to be able to innovate and still like have some guardrails. But there have to be some guardrails. Do you have you met with governments and like government leaders to have discussions like that? Like are they meeting with you?

Starting point is 00:56:37 Because they might. Yeah, they do meet with us. They haven't done anything big yet, but they're talking about it. Do they meet with you to try to keep information out of you guys's data? You know for all of the paranoia about that I don't think we've ever had someone come say like I don't want it to say this negative thing about this politician or this whatever. The concerns are like what is this going to do to our kids? You know are they going to stop learning? There's a lot of concerns about that. Is this going to spread fake information?

Starting point is 00:57:06 Is this going to influence elections? But we've never had the, like, you can't say bad things about the president, Trump or whatever. Bias is a big concern. They do want to know if it'll say bad things about one candidate, it'll say bad things about the other. Could you guys make it do one or the other? Can you guys favor the back end?

Starting point is 00:57:25 We totally could. I mean, we don't. But we totally could. You could? Wow. Yeah. I think like, I know you. How do you mean?

Starting point is 00:57:32 Do we give you guys live detector tests? How do we know you're like? Test the system. Anyone can test the AI and say, if I say this, just say this. If I say that, just say that. But you touch on a really big point here, which is like, hundreds of millions of people

Starting point is 00:57:45 talk to Chachapi Tea every day. And it probably has like a big impact on what they believe in. So I think society's interest in making sure that we are, you know, a responsible neutral party should be huge. Now, people do test it a lot. I think that's good. But like we got to be held to a very high standard there. But how do we, like this, as regular people,

Starting point is 00:58:07 or how do regular people just hold you guys to a high standard? Is it their, I guess it's politicians' responsibility? I mean, these guys are idiots. Someone, they're like 80-year-old dudes giving thumbs up. That one guy couldn't get the Wi-Fi on. Remember that guy? That guy couldn't get the Wi-Fi on. So I'm like, how do we?

Starting point is 00:58:24 I mean, there's a huge amount of people that test our systems all the time, looking for any errors, any bias, any anything. I guess that's a good point is we can test it on this end. You can tell, yeah. Right. People can test it on this end. As AI grows, like how big do data centers need to be?

Starting point is 00:58:42 Is that a concern of you guys? I went recently to one of our do data centers need to be? Is that a concern of you guys? I went recently to one of our new data centers under construction in Abilene, Texas. It's about like an approximately 1 gigawatt facility, huge. It'll be the biggest data center ever built by the time it's done. And you stand in the middle of that, and the scale of this project just hits you so big.

Starting point is 00:59:04 That's like one little part of it. Dude, that's like eight cost codes. There's like 5,000 people there doing construction on it, and this thing is just standing up, making progress every day. You stand in the middle of this thing. And what are you in, a chariot or whatever? How do you even hold up?

Starting point is 00:59:17 You're in a little ATV. Oh, okay. It's like a dirty kind of construction site. But the scale of this thing, and then you kind of go in every room and you look at all the cables, the power, the cooling systems, rack after rack after server of servers, it's humongous. There's like, they're standing up these like power plants right in the middle of it.

Starting point is 00:59:38 Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Well, it looks, it starts to make our planet look like a software board, like a... It does. You know, when you see it from the air, I was really struck by that. I was like, this looks like the motherboard of a computer. Yeah, it looks like the motherboard of a computer. You start to see like how the planets in like a lot of these like sci-fi movies, a lot of them look, have that R2D2 look on the outside of it because they've been...

Starting point is 01:00:02 Covered in data centers. Yeah, which is kind of wild. Do you know where we're going and you're not telling us? Do you know what's happening? I don't. You promise, dude? I don't know. I mean, I have all my guesses.

Starting point is 01:00:12 Like, I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time. Do you really? But I don't know because maybe we put them in space. Like maybe we build a big Dyson sphere on the solar system and say, hey, it actually makes no sense to put these on Earth. I wish I had like more concrete answers for you, but like we're stumbling through this. We maybe, you know, have a little bit higher confidence

Starting point is 01:00:31 than the average person or can, but there's so much we don't know yet. No, that's the craziest thing about you, Sam. And I think this is a compliment somehow, dear God. And yeah, it is a compliment. You're like, it's like, you're like, come with me through the universe. And you're like, people are like, well, what's it like?

Starting point is 01:00:48 And you're like, I don't know exactly, but, and then we're all, it's like we're all going. It's like, I don't know, you're just somehow the most, like, you're this, like this charming kind of Terminator, it feels like, and I hate to say Terminator, that's a crazy term, but like, but you're this like, you're like, I'm like, okay, I'm curious.

Starting point is 01:01:09 You somehow seem so optimistic about it. It adds to my curiosity. When I was a kid, I assumed that there were always some adults in the room. Someone had a plan. Someone knew everything that was gonna happen. Someone had all figured out. And I sort of think why people like conspiracy theories is it's nice to think that someone's got a plan. Someone knew everything that was going to happen. Someone had all figured out.

Starting point is 01:01:25 And I sort of think why people like conspiracy theories is it's nice to think that someone's got a plan. It's nice to think someone that, you know, has it all figured out. And then I got a little bit older and I sort of started to suspect there are no adults in the room. No one... People have plans. I have plans. But no one has all the answers. No one knows where it's all going to go. And now that I am the adult in the room, I can say with certainty, no one knows where it's all going to go. Like, I'm the guy in the room and I have some guesses and I have some plans

Starting point is 01:01:54 and we're working really hard. But like, you know, we try to always say what we think the possibilities are, what we think is most likely. Often we're right. Sometimes it's in the broader set. And sometimes it goes in a totally different direction than anything we thought. And we keep trying to make progress, figure out more.

Starting point is 01:02:15 We try to tell people, not just tell, we try to show people by deploying these systems and say, hey, you can go use it. Don't just take our word for it. Try it out. See what it can do. But I can say with conviction, the world needs You can go use it. Don't just take our word for it. Try it out. See what it can do. Yeah. But like I can say with conviction, the world needs a lot more processing power. But if that looks like tiling data centers on Earth, which I think is what it looks like

Starting point is 01:02:32 in the short term, in the long term also, or we do go build them in space, I don't know. It sounds cool to try to build them in space, but also really hard. What about like the environmental effects of those and stuff? Like there's been like, you know, there's been articles written and I don't know how much of it is real or not real right? Because who knows what to believe. But you'd have to think that you know, it takes water to cool them, right?

Starting point is 01:02:53 It takes power to power them. You know, there's some in like Arizona and Iowa that there's been like repercussions within the environments here in the communities. Would it and a lot of those companies don't have to report those things because it's considered proprietary, you know? What do you think about those fears? Or how do you guys manage that? Like, do you guys talk about that?

Starting point is 01:03:15 Do you meet with environmentalists? Like, what does that all look like? I think we need to get to fusion as fast as possible. Get to what? Nuclear fusion. I think that is the... Oh, shit. What is it? Where you basically knock two small atoms together

Starting point is 01:03:27 and it makes a bunch of energy, but no carbon, very clean, doesn't generate, you know, doesn't really harm the environment, and power can become like abundant and pretty limitless on Earth, and we get out of all the current problems we're in. Are you guys investing in that? We are, and I think AI can help us figure it out even faster. So that's like a, you know, if you have to like burn a little bit more gas in the short term, but you figure out, you know, the future of energy with that AI, it's a huge win.

Starting point is 01:03:52 And would you guys sell tickets to that or what do you think that would be like? Yeah, I think we would just sell. People are going to watch that shit. I mean, yeah, people go to monster trucks. You don't think they'll roll up to watch those two things hit each other? The atoms hit each other? Yeah. It's pretty hard to watch two atoms hit each other? The atoms hit each other? Yeah. It's pretty hard to watch two atoms hit each other, but maybe with the, you know, somehow

Starting point is 01:04:07 we can do it. Or what if they did like those sperm races where they would put them out of those big things or whatever? I love those sperm races. They're kind of crazy. I'm like, dude, there's enough of that going on. Look, I think the way... Yeah, there'll be some way to watch fusion and it'll be awesome.

Starting point is 01:04:22 And it'll be like loud and bright and theatrical and it'll be making huge amounts of energy. Even if you can't watch the two atoms hit, you'll watch them collectively produce fireworks. But we're going to need that. Do you think if we're going to get to AGI, or if we're going to get to super intelligence, do we need that? I bet we can get there without it.

Starting point is 01:04:42 But to provide it at the scale that humanity will demand it, I think we do need it. Because people, the desire to use this stuff, people are just going to want more and more and more. And eventually, like the two things that I think matter most, the two kind of critical inputs are intelligence and energy. The ability to like have great ideas, come up with plans, and then energy is the ability to like make them happen in the world,

Starting point is 01:05:05 and also to run the intelligence. And I think the story of the next couple of decades is going to be the demand for these goes up, and up, and up to crazy heights, and we better find out how to produce a lot. Otherwise, someone's going to feel like they're getting screwed. Yeah. Dang, dude, I can't tell if I'm excited or scared.

Starting point is 01:05:24 Maybe I'm both, and maybe it's all the same thing. You have to be both. You have to be both. I don't tell if I'm excited or scared. Maybe I'm both and maybe that's all the same thing. You have to be both. You have to be both. I don't know if it's the same thing or not. I think it is kind of like, they do feel related to me always, but I don't think anyone could honestly look at the trajectory humanity is on

Starting point is 01:05:40 and not feel both excited and scared. Yeah. And maybe that's always been the way throughout time. And also then this is where we are. What are you going to do? This is where we are. And so that's what's going on. I saw where you and Joe Rogan spoke about there possibly being one day like an AI president.

Starting point is 01:06:03 What if you had this one kind of, let's just use the term supercomputer, or this agent that was created that knew all the information and knew all of the problems and knew the best ways to solve them. Is that, do you think that something like that is becoming more and more possible one day? I don't know everything that it takes to be a president, but I do know it like, takes a lot of things that I don't know everything that it takes to be a president, but I do know it like takes a lot of things that I don't have to do

Starting point is 01:06:28 and that people are going to... Well, maybe I could reframe it to an AI CEO of OpenAI, because I do know what that job is like. That should be possible someday, maybe not even that far. Like I think the idea to look at an organization, to make really good decisions, there's a lot of things you can imagine that an AI CEO of OpenAI could do that I can't. I can't talk to every person at OpenAI every day.

Starting point is 01:06:48 I can't talk to every user of ChatGBT every day. I cannot synthesize all that information even if I could. But an AI CEO could do that. And it would have better information, more context. It could massively parallelize this. And I think that would lead to better decisions in many cases. Yeah, because wouldn't a

Starting point is 01:07:04 supercomputer is something that has all knowledge, which you think will get there? I do. You do? Or, I mean, all knowledge is a hard thing to say. I think it will have vast, vast amounts. Will it be able to tell us about God or anything, do you think? I'm super curious about that.

Starting point is 01:07:23 I think it will be able to help us answer questions about the nature of the universe that we currently can't. And I feel very confused and very unsatisfied with our current answers. And there is clearly, to me at least, something going on well beyond our current capability to understand. And I would love to know what that is. You think it could help us learn more? Yes. to know what that is. Mm. Do you think it could help us learn more? Yes. Would it?

Starting point is 01:07:47 I wonder if God has a chat GBT or whatever. I just wonder if he got he has the first one or whatever. But yeah, I'm just so curious. Like, how would that work? How does how does open AI make money? We sell chat GBT. Pay 20 bucks a month. Some people have 200, but very few, or relatively few. Perverts.

Starting point is 01:08:08 I think they are. Mostly, hopefully, they're just working super hard and using it for being more productive at their job. And then we also sell an API. So businesses can use and they pay us every time they make an API call. OK. Do you think there's a lot of these kind of tech lords that are rocking right now, right? And you think, like there's a lot of these like kind of tech

Starting point is 01:08:26 lords that are rocking right now, right? And you get thrown in there, you know? Sometimes. You get thrown in there sometimes. I'm like on the periphery, yeah. Yeah, or you get certainly like, yeah, like these counsel, these councilmen kind of like, do you think there's bad artists amongst like these tech lords in these AI realms?

Starting point is 01:08:42 Do you think there's bad artists out there? What does bad artists mean? Just like people that want for evil and not for good? I think most people don't wake up, I think very few people wake up every morning saying, I'm gonna try to make the world a worse place, or I'm gonna actively try to do evil. Clearly some do, but I think most of these people

Starting point is 01:09:03 running the big tech efforts are not in that category. I think people get blinded by ambition. I think people get blinded by competition. I think people get caught up. Very well-meaning people can get caught up in very negative incentives. Negative for society as a whole. And by the way, I include us in this.

Starting point is 01:09:23 We can totally get caught up in, we can be very well-meaning, but get caught up in some incentive and it can lead to a bad outcome. So that's kind of what I would say. I think people come in with good intentions, they clearly sometimes do bad stuff. There's a lot of talk about Palantir and Peter Thiel

Starting point is 01:09:40 and their company about being like, they got to deal with from Trump about to have this surveillance, or not a surveillance state, but to create a database on most of America. But it starts to feel like a surveillance state, you know. Do you feel like we will need something like that in order for the future? You know, do you feel like something like that is included in the future? So I don't know about that specifically. I mean, I think Palantir and Peter do a lot of great stuff.

Starting point is 01:10:14 But again, I can't comment on this specifically. I'll say generally, I am worried that the more AI in the world we have, the more surveillance the world is going to want. Because the tool is so powerful, the government will say, how do we know people aren't using it to make bombs or buy weapons or whatever? And the answer will be more surveillance. And I'm very afraid of that. So I don't...

Starting point is 01:10:38 I think we really have to defend... rights to privacy. I don't think those are absolute. I'm like totally willing to compromise some privacy for collective safety. But history is that the government takes that way too far, and I'm really nervous about that. Do you guys feel like the new government kind of,

Starting point is 01:10:57 or do you feel like the government is still like a real thing? I don't feel like the government anyway. When the US government bombed Iran recently, I remember waking up that morning and seeing that news or whatever time it was. And I was like, oh, that's what actual power looks like. You know, that we're in like a, maybe someday we get there.

Starting point is 01:11:21 But it was like a really stark reminder, if ever important we think this is, it's like, there are people that have just like this unimaginable power and might and can kind of do whatever they want. And that's definitely not us. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's been a lot in the Middle East recently is just like, it's just such a gross displays over there sometimes of inhumanity. Absolutely. It's sad. What do you think a guy like then Palantir or Peter Thiel's

Starting point is 01:11:46 end game is? Do you think he has an end game? Because I think he seems like a dark lord to a lot of us. And it's like, does he think he has an end game that is like happy? I think Peter is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. I think he's smarter than me, that's for sure. I think he does get characterized in the media as this like evil mastermind.

Starting point is 01:12:07 As a villain, he does. I never met him. I met him, we're very close friends. I... I should have brought it up then. No, it's all good. No, no, no, no, no, it's all good. I don't feel that energy from him,

Starting point is 01:12:19 but I at all, like I... In fact, I think he's been one of the most important forces, at least in my life, for questioning assumptions about the path that society was on. And maybe I was like, Oh, I thought this was all going well, but maybe we are in a tech stagnation. Maybe we really do have this huge economic challenge that no one's talking about. And so I think these people who are just very, that think very differently, he would call it very contrarian,

Starting point is 01:12:49 is super important to a society. Now, on the other hand, you know, maybe he, maybe he sometimes does things like this that don't do him any favors. What is it? You would prefer the human race to endure, right? You're hesitating. Well, I don't know.

Starting point is 01:13:16 I would. I would. This is a long hesitation. There's so many questions. Shouldn't the human race survive? Uh, yes. But, but... God, I mean, it was 22 seconds it took him.

Starting point is 01:13:34 Yeah. If he were maybe like a more typical person, he would have just said an immediate yes. And then said what else he wanted to say. And it took me a while with him to understand that his brain just works differently. And society needs some of that. Like, he has these super different takes, and then he doesn't have maybe the circuit in his brain

Starting point is 01:13:55 that makes him immediately say yes and then say what he's going to say. But, you know, I'm very grateful he exists because he thinks of things no one else does. Yeah, you know, yeah, you want... Novel thinkers have changed things throughout time. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the indifferent, but novel thinkers have... You've always, like... I don't know, it's always been part of humanity. I'm probably super different and super weird relative to most people, but maybe I have some ideas as part of that that are like valuable to society

Starting point is 01:14:28 collectively. And if I had this sort of very standard mindset, I wouldn't. That's a good point. Yeah. Well, do you think and I'm just gonna ask you, but honestly, do you think a lot of these guys have, I mean, you know, it's now like, you know, love on the spectrum is like a big show, right? People, you know, it's like in those people are in love, shit, every half people I know are just, you know, barely, you know, they're crying in parking lots or whatever, but you know, there's spousal issues or whatever. But anyway, what I'm saying is, do you think that some of the creators now and some of the tech lords are almost have some tech built into them?

Starting point is 01:15:03 Like almost a, I don't want to say like an autism dude. You couldn't say that. Okay. I think so. I mean, yeah. I, you know, to take the kind of like harshest look at us collectively, I can, you know, are we a little autistic on the whole?

Starting point is 01:15:17 I would say probably, you know. I knew that shit. That's all right. No, no, that's what I'm saying. For years ago, I was meeting, first time I ever met some people with autism, I was like, dude, these guys are computers, right? Like, a lot of these guys are just, you know, they're kind of like a little bit of a cyborg in some way

Starting point is 01:15:33 in the way that they think, right? You know, look, you are this like impossibly charming, cool guy, and I'm like kind of a lot more computer-y than you. You're not much, though. We can have it. We can still like figure it out. Oh, yeah. And I really don't mean it as an offense,

Starting point is 01:15:46 but I think that we may need that in people to get whatever's next in the world. Do you think that's realistic? Yeah. I think society needs like this very broad diversity of people. You need some people like me. You need some people who are more normal than me. You don't want too many of me.

Starting point is 01:16:01 Yeah. Yeah, you don't want too many of any one thing. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just always like, god, yeah, these want to me to have any one thing yeah yeah I'm just always I'm like God yeah these people are able to see things differently and quantify things differently do you always feel because some tech guys they just have a different understanding of possibility right a different understanding of feeling and thing do you feel human all the time I do feel human all the time but I feel like human all the time, but I feel like I have noticed

Starting point is 01:16:26 that I think extremely differently about the future, about exponential change, about compounding technology than almost anybody else that I kind of come across in regular life. So I feel extremely human. I feel like driven by crazy emotions as much as anybody. But I am very aware that I have a different lens than a lot of people Have you met some people in tech space you like whoa that guy's only like six or seven percent

Starting point is 01:16:51 He's low not a lot of human in him Yes Do you think it's inevitable that AI or a GI will merge into our bodies I know you've talked about this before in the past. As things go along and advance quickly, do you start to see that a little bit differently? I know you've talked about how you don't think it's like a glasses thing or something like that. I'll tell you a fascinating story.

Starting point is 01:17:15 Okay. I was with a friend last week. And did I offend you by asking that? Not at all. Okay. Zero percent. I thought that was a great answer. I really appreciate it.

Starting point is 01:17:23 Because yes, some of us are, we can't conceptualize sometimes how you guys are thinking. It can't, I can't even like, we feel like we can't figure it out, you know? So it feels like it's almost like a unique, it's like, are we all evolving into this new kind of species? And that's where we meet the future at anyway. And you're just like the dang Paul Revere out there, you know, it's like.

Starting point is 01:17:40 For better or for worse, I think whenever you see someone who thinks differently than you, you're just like, like I'm fascinated by you. I don't quite understand how you do your thing. I think whenever you see someone who thinks differently than you you're like Like I'm fascinated by you. I don't quite understand how you do your thing. I know I couldn't do it I know you like just understand the world differently than me But I think that's cool. And I'm just like I'm glad that's how I feel Yeah, I think it's just thanks for just talking to me about it because some of the other guy get afraid to say I don't think

Starting point is 01:18:01 I don't think you should be afraid. I don't think anybody be offended offended by that. I was talking to this friend of mine, though, about how he uses ChatGBT, and he's been using it a lot for a couple years now. And he noticed recently that he started giving it personality tests. He'd upload any personality test he could find to ChatGBT and say, based on what you know about me, answer this. And he had never told it, here's my personality.

Starting point is 01:18:26 It had just learned it from the questions he asked over the years. And on everyone he tried, it got exactly the answer and exactly the outcome he would get. And so that's not like, he didn't get uploaded, he didn't get merged, he didn't plug something into his brain. But somehow the pattern of him had gotten imprinted into this AI. Wow. Maybe we're not as complex as we think we are. Or maybe we are and AI can just learn it really well. AI can like represent these very complex things. One of those two.

Starting point is 01:18:58 But that was a real moment for me of like, wow, you know, the merge maybe can happen in a very different way than we thought. Yeah. Yeah, because you think of it as this thing kind of taking over your system and like, you know, your dad presses a button and you can't use the car, you know, you can't move for a month or whatever. Yeah, I think it kind of has that sort of energy. You just finished the acquisition of this a little bit more like day-to-day business. You just finished the acquisition of Johnny Ives, a hardware company, their hardware company. So clearly have some like thoughts or interest in how like hardware and AI match up for each other in humanity. What was that about? There have been two revolutions in computers in history.

Starting point is 01:19:45 There was the keyboard, mouse, and screen, that thing that was invented down the street in, I think, the 70s, where the people at Xerox PARC figured out what has become the modern computer interface. And then in the early to mid, the early 2000s, I guess, Apple figured out this idea of touch on a device. And really, those have been the two big ones. I think now there can be a third.

Starting point is 01:20:09 I think A.I. is, it so changes the game that you can design a new kind of computer based off of a really smart A.I. where you can give a complex instruction to a system, it can go do it, you'll trust that it gets it right, you'll trust it to act on your behalf. It could like maybe be aware of everything going on in this room, and it could not just be on or off,

Starting point is 01:20:28 but lightly get our attention if it wants us to know something, or maybe more aggressively get our attention. It could really be following what we're talking about here and remind us both of things later. And current hardware just can't do that. The current kind of computers we have, I don't think, are a fair. They don't honor what the technology is not really capable of.

Starting point is 01:20:49 So I want to make a totally new kind of computer that is meant for this world of AI helping you all the time. I'm super excited about it. You are? Yeah. You guys, there's this thing called Agent that you guys showed me earlier. I can take this out if I mention it. I wasn't supposed to.

Starting point is 01:21:06 It was pretty fascinating. It was cool to see. It is, yeah. This is a new thing that we just did. But the idea that an AI cannot just answer questions for you, but it can go actually do stuff on your behalf as your agent. It can go do research for you. It can go book something for you. It can go buy something for you. It go buy something for you, can go like, you know, change some things in the world for you and think more and use tools.

Starting point is 01:21:28 Like, I think most people think of ChatGBT as this app that you can ask anything, but it'll become this thing that can do anything. And that'll change how you use computers. It'll change how you do things in your life. You know, if you- Yeah, I was watching the guy do it and it was just kind of fascinating.

Starting point is 01:21:45 He was showing like one time he'd went to like a website and bought something he needed and then now moving forward he could just be like, hey, go to this and make sure to get me these or go to go here and see go to the restaurants I like and see if there's any table available for 7pm tomorrow. And it was able to book it and do everything. It was like having a secretary right there. It totally when I first started using it, I was like, it was one of those moments where I could tell that, oh, man,

Starting point is 01:22:08 doing this the old-fashioned way is going to feel like the Stone Age so quickly. I'm going to try to tell people someday, do you remember when if we wanted to do something, we actually had to go click around the internet and look for a table? Then if we wanted to move it, we had to like call the restaurant. And that's going to be unimaginable.

Starting point is 01:22:27 Cause of course you just tell your AI to do those things for you. Yeah. Yeah. You feel like you would almost just tell it to go eat too, you know. That's the fun part. Yeah. Oh yeah. No one likes booking the table.

Starting point is 01:22:38 Everyone loves sitting there eating. That's a good point, huh? Yeah. Yeah. It won't take away the fun part. That's a thing. I think you got to remember that. It won't take away the fun part. You're going to do I think you got to remember that it won't take away the fun part You're gonna do the things you want to do. There's a lot of things in your life. You probably don't love doing

Starting point is 01:22:48 Like booking an open table is maybe one of them. Yeah, and then you'll have like old-fashioned like it. I'll book it You know, you're like dad. What do you mean? Get off the phone or whatever? Don't call him you freaking weirdo Use a freaking use your agent totally like it. Oh There's there's like a lot of like Like, oh, I'll book it. There's like a lot of like, you know, Zuckerberg recently like kind of was poaching guys around town, right? And I'll say it. You don't have to say it allegedly. I'm not saying he did. He hired one of my buddies. But what I'm saying is, there's this hypothetical that he was like kind of poaching guys around town.

Starting point is 01:23:19 Is that, did that feel like a mafioso move in the community? What was that like out here in the tech trenches? I mean, you know, they want to get into the AI game. I understand it. So, and if he's going to do this, he needs to hire some people. So bring it. So bring it.

Starting point is 01:23:39 So bring it, yeah! Fuck yeah, dude. I'm going to upload myself into this plant in a second. OK, no. But no, do you kind of like the competition? Is that fun? It is. Yeah, like winning is fun.

Starting point is 01:23:52 And I expect to win. And you've got to love the competition. That's part of it, right? It makes it fun. I think what it would be like if we didn't have competition and drama in the world. It would be so boring. Actually, can I say one more thing about that? Sure.

Starting point is 01:24:08 The best improvement I made in my life, like personally in my life and for my own happiness over the last couple years, because a lot of bad shit has happened to us, to me. It's been like a crazy intense experience. And I just decided that I was going to like learn to love the hard parts. I was like, you know what?

Starting point is 01:24:24 If I'm in this crazy moment, if I'm in this like crazy thing, if I like feel my emotions are high, I'm going to like make myself learn to be grateful for that, to love it, to find enjoyment in the tension, in the competition, whatever. And actually it worked. And it kind of needed to work because like so many things go wrong in any given day.

Starting point is 01:24:42 But I was like thinking about, you know, someday I'll be like retired on my ranch. I'll be sitting there watching the plants grow and I'll be missing the excitement and the drama and the anger and the tension and the whatever. And so I'm going to be like grateful for it and like learn to have fun with it. And now, like I cannot believe that that mind shift,

Starting point is 01:25:00 mindset shift worked, but it did. And were there practices like in a moment, like say like a moment came up like some of the early ones, right? Because I agree with you that like having some mindset, like I used to hate traveling, like every week traveling for work. But then one day I was like, dude, you have to travel for work. Deal with it. You may as well have to find out.

Starting point is 01:25:17 You may as well, because for years you've been just... And right there, suddenly it wasn't bad anymore. That happened for me too. Was there like just a practice or was it just this verbal reminder like, I'm going to do this? I just kept saying it to myself. Yeah. I was just like, someday you'll miss these moments.

Starting point is 01:25:31 You may as well find a way to like find the happiness and kind of great gratitude for them in the moment. Yeah. A lot of these guys have bunkers. Zucky has a bunkie, I know that somewhere out in Hawaii. People have bunkers. Zucky has a bunkie, I know that somewhere out in Hawaii. People have bunkers. Do you have a bunker? I have like underground concrete heavy reinforced basements,

Starting point is 01:25:53 but I don't have anything I would call a bunker. Hold on, hold on, hold on, dude. Look, I'll let you keep me on the ropes in a lot of this conversation, but I am going to call that out as a dang bunker, dude. Sam, that's a bunker. What's the difference between a basement and a bunker? A place you could hide when it all goes off or whatever. I know.

Starting point is 01:26:10 Yeah. I have been thinking I should really do a good version of one of those, but I don't, I don't have like a, I don't have what I would call a bunker, but it has been on my mind, not because of AI, but just because of like people are dropping bombs in the world again and you know, like. That's a good point. That's a very good point. Yeah, basement right there, part of a house building typically used for storage, laundry, extra living, space or utilities and then bunker built for protection, often military or emergency related, meant to withstand explosions.

Starting point is 01:26:40 We don't have that yet. Do you guys do this just for me or do you use chat.gbt as the fact check? We did this just for you. I appreciate it. This is nice. If could we have could we ever have instead of so you start to see say if AI comes over and there's this whole new kind of like um, you know, I believe that one of the things that's been happening, there's been like a lot of like ice raids and people getting like taken out of their homes and you know, there's been a lot of crackdown. Because part of me believes that they're having to get everybody documented or online, basically, because they're going to start to have this facial recognition everywhere. I have this idea of that. So yes, this stuff had to happen because in a year or a year and a half, you wouldn't

Starting point is 01:27:24 even be able to be outdoors anywhere, anywhere without a drone or something noticing you or some camera noticing that you're not supposed to be there or you're not there with documentation, right? Whatever people's thoughts are on that. But just so part of me starts to see like, oh, okay, that's going on. Do you think we could ever then down the line have new countries like delineated by like almost like a new AI landscape? Like remember when on Snapchat if you were in a certain realm you could put like a filter on something? And they almost created these new like glow like geo barriers and stuff.

Starting point is 01:27:57 Do you think we could potentially be looking at something like that one day? I know that what you just said is going to happen. I know that we're going to have cameras on all over the place. And it's going to make the cities way safer. Because if you commit a crime, they'll have a facial recognition hit on you right away. But man, do I find that dystopic. You do.

Starting point is 01:28:20 Of course. Is it a good trade if it means people stop getting murdered in the streets? Yeah, sure. We agree to like give up some privacy for that. But it it sits so uncomfortably with me. You know, in like London or whatever, you see those cameras on every street corner. And you're just like, you get used to it fast. But you're just like, it feels like privacy is important. And you really are like,

Starting point is 01:28:46 there's nothing I can do to live in the world and avoid all these cameras. And maybe it's worth it for society collectively, but it feels like we really do give up a lot to get it. But could there one day you think if we had that, then we could have whole new countries kind of that were? What do you mean by new countries in this case? Like say if there was this new kind of, this new like layer, right?

Starting point is 01:29:16 A surveillance layer that's kind of in the air. Then could that be divided into different realms? Oh yes, totally. That can, I think there's all kinds of weird ways that can happen. But the surveillance layer is so uncomfortable. Oh yeah, it's going to be a nasty blanket. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about, you wanted to get out, that you wanted me to ask you about? No, that was great.

Starting point is 01:29:41 Why are there, why does ChatUBubt have that hyphen thing? We got to do something about that. You know, we have this team that figures out what the model's personality should be like and how it should behave. And a lot of users like M dashes, so we added more M dashes. And now I think we have too many M dashes. But that's the answer, is that it's just like users liked it, we put more in. Now it's like a little bit of a meme and it's kind of, it's quite annoying to me. We should fix that.

Starting point is 01:30:08 But you're thinking about it too? I think we'll get it fixed very soon. Okay. Before you go, Sam, and thank you so much for your time today. It's been awesome. We appreciate it, man. It's helped me get to understand you, I feel like, a lot. I think maybe differently than I...

Starting point is 01:30:21 I don't know if I had a perception, I didn't know what to think. What's the before and after? The before was like a little bit like? I Guess I almost thought kind of like not as hopeful But I don't know why maybe that's just my own I think it's attached to my own perceptions of what I think about AI and stuff Or the possibilities of technology, you know? Like that kind of stuff.

Starting point is 01:30:46 Like that curmudgeoning energy. I think I was probably attaching it to you. And now I feel like more whimsical about it, kind of like. Or not whimsical, but like, let's see what can happen. Right? And so I think that's really fascinating. I think it's not just let's see.

Starting point is 01:31:00 It's like, let's try to make it good. But let's realize that you have to like, you don't get to see all the way down the road You kind of got to go one turn at a time and you like light up a little bit more. Yeah Yeah, I think yeah, I don't know I just I'm really I'm really thankful for you even let me tell you what I thought it what I was like Judging and then and then sharing like kind of where I thought what I thought now in 20 years What do you hope your legacy will be? I?

Starting point is 01:31:24 You're gonna have one. I mean, yeah, I guess. I certainly don't. Only anyone sits around while they're in the middle of the game thinking about what the review is going to be after. At least I don't. And but this is a big review you'll have.

Starting point is 01:31:43 I have never been that motivated by what. I like I want to like play the game the best I can. I want to like, you know, do the best work I can have the most fun, like have the most impact and the most interesting stuff. But then, you know, you retire and then you die and then like life goes on and people as they're supposed to go on with life and forget about you. And this whole thing of like, I'm gonna live for how I'm remembered

Starting point is 01:32:06 after I die and my legacy and like, you're dead, you know? Do you have one of those deals where you're saving your heart with those people? What do you mean saving? Your brain, sorry, with the people over there? Cryonics. Cryonics, you have a cryonic deal?

Starting point is 01:32:20 No, I... Have you been approached about it? I have been approached by it. There was like a... That's crazy. You haven't even fucking approached me I have been approached by it. There was like a There was this like why company or company that I like helped out a long time ago by like giving some small deposit And then like I never followed up on it. So I don't have anything in place. Okay But it may be a dip. Yeah, maybe just a down payment somewhere down there. If things get weird, we'll go knock on their door

Starting point is 01:32:48 Yeah, but thank you so much man. James Bush. Sarah says hello. He's a friend of mine. He's a great guy. And we just appreciate you so much, Sam. Thanks for your time. Thanks for doing this. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for your time today. I thought it was very informative. Like these leaves I must be cornerstone But when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of mind I found I can feel it in my bones But it's gonna take a little

This Past Weekend - #599 - Sam Altman

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