This Past Weekend - E563 AI CEO Alexandr Wang
Episode Date: February 18, 2025Alexandr Wang is the founder and CEO of Scale AI, a platform that provides data training for AI programs. In 2021 he was named the youngest self-made billionaire in the world by Forbes at the age of 2...4. Theo is joined by Alexandr Wang to talk all about AI and how it’s changing our world fast. They discuss Alex’s choice to drop out of MIT to pursue this field full time, the debate over whether it’s creating or eliminating jobs, and how soon regular people will start to see these programs in their everyday lives. Alexandr Wang: https://www.instagram.com/alexanddeer/ ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10%off your first month. Modiphy: Get 50% off the last website you’ll ever need at https://modiphy.com/THEO ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Today's guest is from Los Alamos, New Mexico.
He's a leader in the world of business and technology.
He's an entrepreneur.
He started Scale AI, a company recently valued
at $14 billion.
He started it when he was only 19 and at 24 he
became the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. We talk about
his company, the future of AI and the role it plays in our human existence.
This was super educational for me. I hope it is for you. I'm grateful for his time.
Today's guest is Mr. Alexander Wang.
["Shadow Me"]
Alexander Wang, man, thanks for hanging out, bro.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Yeah, good to see you, dude.
Last time was at the inauguration.
Yeah, what'd you think of that? Like, what were your thoughts after you left? Because
you and I ended up, we like left out of there and then went and got lunch together, which
is kind of crazy.
It was, there was a lot going on. Yeah, it was a, were you there the whole weekend?
No, I just got there the day, the morning of the inauguration. Were you there the whole weekend?
I was there the whole weekend.
Yeah, no, I mean, I think at least for what we do, like for AI,
the new administration is really excited about it
and wants to make sure that we get it right as a country.
So that was all great, but it was kind of a crazy,
the whole event, like everything was pretty crazy.
I don't know, what did you think?
I mean, when I saw Conor McGregor show up up That's when I was like shit is where are we it?
That's what like the boost was I mean you were there Sam Altman was there
I was just like it was like whoa what happened here
And part of that's cuz Alex Bruce of wits, you know, totally
Yeah, I mean it's all cuz of him that we all went but just the fact that he would bring these people together
It kind of makes you question.
Crossover.
It's like in those TV shows
when you have those crossover episodes.
Yeah.
That's kind of what it felt like.
Oh yeah, when like the Harlem Globetrotters
and it would be like them versus like the Care Bears
or whatever would show up.
Exactly, yeah.
And you're like, yeah, this seems,
yeah, some cross pollination.
Yeah, what did you think when Connor showed up?
Was that strange to see him?
Was there somebody you thought that was unique to see there
for you?
Well, yeah, I mean, you, Connor, like the Pauls,
I don't know, the whole thing was pretty crazy.
I see Sam all the time, and I see some of the tech people
all the time.
I mean, it was a funny crossover,
and it was obviously like, so many people flew in to be able to go
to like the outdoor inauguration, right?
And so, I mean, there were so many people in the city,
we ran into them obviously, but like,
there were so many people in DC
who were just around for the inauguration.
So it was a...
Yeah, I didn't even think about that.
Oh, there was a couple of hundred thousand people
probably that just got kind of displaced in a way.
And suddenly they're just in bars or whatever, just like buying like, there was a couple of hundred thousand people probably that just got kind of displaced in a way. And suddenly there was in bars or whatever,
just like buying like, there was like people I saw walking,
just adult onesies and shit that said Trump
or on the, it's crazy shit.
Yeah, thanks for coming in, man.
I'm excited to learn about AI.
I know that that's a world that you're in.
You're in the tech universe
and you're from New Mexico, right?
Yeah. And so when you New Mexico, right? Yeah.
And so when you grew up there, did you
have a strong sense of science and technology?
Was that part of your world?
Did your parents lead you into that?
What was just some of your youth like there?
Yeah, so both my parents are physicists.
And there's a-
Oh, damn.
I grew up in this town called Los Alamos,
where there's a national lab there.
Did you watch Oppenheimer?
Yeah.
Yeah. So the, so all the New Mexico shots in Oppenheimer, that's exactly where I grew up.
Oh, dang.
So it was like originally where all the scientists came together and, and did all the work in the
atomic bomb. And there's still this huge lab. That's basically the, everybody I knew effectively,
like their parents worked at the lab or were somehow affiliated with the lab.
It's like Nukeville over there, huh?
Nukeville, yeah.
Is that, is it scary like that?
It was, you know, it.
Is it at a level of mystery?
Like is your prom like last night under the stars
or something like.
There's a, there's this one museum.
Well, the funny thing is like, first you hear,
you hear this, you learn the story of the atomic bomb and the Manhattan project, like basically every year growing up, because there thing is like, first you hear this, you learn the story of the atomic bomb
and the Manhattan Project, like basically every year
growing up, because there's always like a day or a few days
where there's a substitute teacher
and they just play the videos.
So you're just like-
Yeah, an alcoholic or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A recreational user, we'll use that term.
That's crazy that that just, like every year you guys have like,
just like blast it Thursdays or whatever.
And it's just.
Yeah, you're just learning, you're learning again
about the Manhattan Project.
And then there's a little museum in town,
which is like you walk through
and there's like a life-size replica of the nukes.
So it's pretty wild, wild yeah and where did they
drop the atomic bombs on they dropped them on Asia right here Oshima they yeah
they dropped them on in in Japan yeah Hiroshima and Nagasaki is it crazy is it
crazy being like semi-asian part Asian yeah my my parents are Chinese oh nice
man is it crazy being Asian and then having that happen
to Asian people with the bond?
Like, is that a weird thing there or it's nothing?
No, I don't think so.
I mean, I think the thing is, like, you know,
so there weren't, I didn't grow up with very many Asians
because in that town, it was, you know,
it was in New Mexico.
There's very few Asians in New Mexico.
So I was one of the only Asian kids in my class growing up
and so I didn't think that much about it honestly.
But then, but it is super weird, you know,
you grow up and you learn about this very advanced
technology that had this like really, really big impact
on the world and I think that shaped.
Yeah, it's like the scientific John Jones over there, really.
He's a New Mexican, isn't he?
He lives in Albuquerque.
Oh, he does?
I think he does, yeah.
Oh, sweet, man.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So you're there.
There's this energy always there of this creation.
So probably the possibility of creation maybe was always in the air.
I'm just wondering, like, how did you get formed, kind of?
Like, what's your origin story, kind of?
It was super scientific because, you know, there were all these presentations around
what were the new kinds of science that were going on at the lab.
So there's all these chemistry experiments and these different, like, Earth science experiments
and physics experiments.
My mom studied, like, plasma and, like, how plasma, you know, worked inside of stars and
stuff like that.
So it was just the wildest stuff.
And you would talk to people's parents, people, like I talked to my classmates or I talked
to their parents about what they're working on is always some crazy science thing.
So that was, that was really cool.
Because everybody in that town basically is, they're all working on some kind of
Crazy scientific thing and so you kind of I mean I feel like I grew up
Feeling like you know anything was possible in that way like yeah because the rest of us in other communities shitty communities or whatever
We're just making that volcano or whatever. You know what I'm saying? We're doing like
grassroots level Bull whatever, you know what I'm saying? We're doing like grassroots level bullshit, you know?
Dang, that's gotta be wild.
So every, you see somebody just sneaking behind an alley
and buying a bit of uranium and shit like that
in your neighborhood, that's gotta be kind of unique.
I remember there was someone from our town
who did a science fair project called,
it's called like Great Balls of Plasma. And for the science, literally for the science fair, called, it's called like great balls of plasma.
And for the science, literally for the science fair, this
was in like high school for the science fair, they made
like huge balls of plasma in their garage.
And I was like, what the heck?
This is, we're all just doing this in high school.
Damn.
So did you feel competitive or did you just feel like
hyper capable? Like, did you feel like kind of advanced just in your studies, like when you were young, like did you feel competitive or did you just feel like hyper capable? Like did you feel like kind of advanced just in your studies like when you were young?
Like did you in class, you like go some of this stuff's kind of coming easy to me?
I ended up, what I did is there was a, I ended up getting really competitive about math in particular.
Yeah.
And so my sport was math, which is kind of crazy.
That algebra is brazy, son. I know I feel you.
And it was because when I was in middle school, when I was in sixth grade,
there was this one math competition where if you, if you got top four in the state,
state of New Mexico, then you would get an all expense paid trip to Disney World.
And, and I remember as a sixth grader,
like that was the most motivating thing
I could possibly imagine was like
an all-expense paid trip to Disney World.
Yeah.
Did you win it?
I won it.
I got fourth place, so I snuck in there.
Qualifier.
Snuck in.
And then I went to,
and then we went to Florida to Disney World. And I hadn traveled or like, I didn't travel around too much growing up.
Like I mostly was in New Mexico and we did some road trips around the Southwest.
So I remember getting to Florida and it was extremely humid.
It was like, I never felt what humidity felt like when I landed in Florida.
I was like, Oh, this feels bad.
And then I, yeah, it definitely does.
Yeah, it's funny, because I grew up inhumid, dude.
Like you would like, you try to shake somebody's hand,
you couldn't even land it,
because it was just not enough viscous,
just too much lube and a handshake.
You'd sit there for 10 minutes trying to land a handshake.
Everybody was always dripping, you know, all the time.
People, you always thought they were scared or something
or they were kind of geeked up off a gas station dope
or something, but people were just, it was humid.
Yeah, you get really humid over there.
So then I became a mathlete.
That was like a big part of my identity
was being a mathlete.
And I would-
And you have to wear a vest.
Like, what do you guys do?
Is there a uniform for that?
Well, you have a calculator.
So everyone had their favorite calculator.
OK, you got that Draco on you, baby.
I feel you keep strapped.
You stay strapped at that thing.
And then, but outside of that, not really.
I mean, like, everyone had their favorite.
It was pencil.
You had your pencil, your calculator.
That was your gear.
And but yeah, no, I was, I was like a, a nationally ranked mathlete for, for middle school,
high school.
That was my, that was my jam.
Yeah.
And is it, what's that math circle like?
Is there, wow, that's crazy, dude.
So you go to what, are there competitions you go to with that?
There's competitions, yeah.
There's like, there's like state level competitions.
There's national level competitions. There's like, there's like state level competitions. There's national level
competitions. There's like the summer camps, math camp. I went
to math camp a bunch of times where you were you convened
with like minded mathletes.
Okay. Wow, fucking wizards in the park. A couple dudes
fucking fighting over a common denominator in the lobby. That's
crazy, bro.
But then you're but just like any other sport, it's competitive.
You got to win.
And so you're chummy with everyone,
but you're also like, who's going to win?
Yeah.
No, dude, competition's amazing, man.
That's one thing, too, that's so nice
I think about when you're young is
if you're involved in a sport or a group or whatever it was
Just just that chance to be competitive, you know Yeah, what are what were like some of the competitions at the math thing?
Like what's it? What's a math competition like when you get there?
So you the ones in the middle school middle school were actually more fun because there's like there's almost like a Jeopardy style buzzer
Competition and stuff like that. But but in high school once you get to high school
buzzer competition and stuff like that. But once you get to high school, it's just, you just take a test and you just, it's like the biggest one in America is called the USAMO.
Bring it up. USAMO?
USAMO.
Okay.
And, and it's like, people all around the country take this test and there's a...
United States of American Mathematical Olympiad. Okay. Yeah, there you go. people all around the country take this test. And there's a...
And United States of American Mathematical Olympiad.
Okay. Yeah, there you go.
Okay, a participant must be either a US citizen
or a legal resident of the US.
Okay, okay, go on.
And then you, and then it's a nine hour test.
It's split over two days, it's nine hours.
You, it's four and a half hours,
and it's nine hours and you have six problems.
So it's kind of nerve wracking.
And you get in there, you have four and a half hours
the first day, four and a half hours the second day.
Can you cheat in between the days?
Can you just go home and?
No, because you only get three questions the first day
and then you only get three questions the next day.
Wow, they figured it out.
I remember the first time I took it,
I was in, I think I was in eighth grade,
first time I took it.
And I was so nervous and I just,
I brought a thermos full of coffee
and I drank so much coffee that those four and a half hours
felt like a year.
It was like, I was so jittery the whole time.
It was crazy.
Dang, you out there rattling, brother.
Oh, integers make me rattle, brother.
I feel you on that.
Dude, so that's pretty, so you're competitive.
And so you get out of there and you're obviously,
I guess, admired in the world of math probably,
or that's like a thing that you can point,
that's like a pin feathering your cap.
So that helps you get into MIT, right?
Yep.
So then, yeah, on the MIT admissions,
they ask for your competitive math scores.
So if you're so.
So you knew a lot of kids going there probably because it was.
Tons of kids.
Yeah, yeah.
Tons of kids.
It was like a reunion.
It was like math camp reunion.
Damn, because I was wondering where all y'all were at, dude,
because we were doing some other shit.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, we were not.
God, that's where all the smart kids were.
That's fascinating, man.
And so then, yeah, I was at MIT.
And then MIT is like a really intense school,
because they, you know, the classes,
they don't fuck around with.
They just really like, they load you up with tons of work.
And most of the time you have, you're like,
they load you up with like huge amounts of work
and they, you know, you, you,
you don't really know what's going on initially.
And so you're just kind of like,
you're just trying to make it through.
But, you know, there's this motto that,
that MIT has called IHTFP,
which among the students stands for,
I hate this fucking place.
Oh yeah.
It's heavy, huh?
Yeah, but then the school, when you go,
they tell you, oh, it stands for,
I've truly found paradise, so.
Oh, so a couple differences of opinion.
Yeah.
Damn.
So it's really severe there, there's a lot of work,
they load you down out of the gate?
You do a lot of work, but it's kind of awesome. I mean, cause I think the students really severe there. There's a lot of work. They load you down out of the gate. You do a lot of work.
But it's kind of awesome.
I mean, because I think the students really band together.
I think instead of it being competitive, really, MIT is much more about everybody coming together,
working on problems together, working on homework together, and just kind of making it through
together.
What's that social life like there?
Like are you dating, are you going to parties?
What's that like for you at that time?
It's a bunch of parties because people like MIT,
there's a lot of people who like tinkering with gadgets.
So they like tinkering with like, you know,
lights and big speakers and DJ sets and all this stuff.
So actually the parties are pretty good
because they're like, the production value is high.
The production quality is high.
Damn.
Um, and then what about when the science kids come through,
the lab dogs, are they bringing,
are people making like unique drugs?
Was there like designer drugs that are being created
by actual people?
Like just because, you know what I'm saying?
Like my friends in college,
none of us would know how to do that,
but there may be somebody at a smart,
at a more prestigious school that would know how. do that, but there may be somebody at a more prestigious school
that would know how.
Was that a thing even, or is that just?
There was one part of the campus called East Campus,
where it was more fringe.
And so there was like, at one point in the school year,
in their courtyard, they would build a gigantic catapult,
like a huge catapult.
Like a trebuchet?
Like a trebuchet, yeah.
What's the difference?
I don't know what the difference.
Yeah, let's get the difference here
because people need to know this anyway.
People have, for decades now, people have been.
A trebuchet has a rope attached to the end of it
that flings it where a catapult just launches it.
No, it was a catapult then.
Okay.
Like a big, because there was a big,
there was a big like ice cream scooper.
Oh yeah.
Looking thing that would like,
that would fling it.
And what are they just flinging at her all
over the rest of the campus?
They would fling stuff into the river, which I don't think,
nothing I'm thinking about, I feel like, I don't know what
the, yeah, no, these giant, this giant like catapult things.
Yeah.
And so this was like a event that would go on
and people would kind of rave there, what are you saying?
Yeah, they would do this, they would do other things.
They were like, they were into,
they would like build a lot of stuff over there.
And there would be...
Like people that ended up at Burning Man later on.
Yes, yes, that was the Burning, that was core Burning Man.
Like there was a, there was a satanic ritual floor.
Oh yeah. Yeah, like a lot of,
like it's fringe, cool, it's cool.
Right.
But, but yeah, so there's all these parties.
We bragged at MIT that, you know,
people from all the neighboring schools,
because Boston is a huge college town,
like tons of tons of-
Boston's an amazing city.
Yeah, but no, MIT was fun.
But I was only there, I was at MIT for one year.
Right, and you dropped out, is that safe to say?
Yeah.
Okay, you dropped out, and then you,
so you got into AI, into the AI world. Is that kind of a safe bridge to say? Yeah. Okay, you dropped out. And then you, so you got into AI, into the AI world.
Is that kind of a safe bridge to say? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is there, and I want to
ask this because I know Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college. You dropped out of college.
Both you guys have had success in tech and kind of, you know, forward thinking that sort
of world. Is there something in college that you felt like didn't nurture you or did you just feel
like this isn't the place for me? Do you feel like college doesn't nurture a certain type of thinker
or was it just a personal choice? I think for me it was like I was just feeling really impatient
and I don't really know why really but I remember like I remember I was in school really impatient. And I don't really know why really,
but I remember I was in school the first year.
It was really fun and I really enjoyed it.
But then I remember, in the year when I was at MIT,
was one of the first,
it was one of the early big moments in AI.
Because it was, I don't even remember this,
but there was an AI that beat the world champion at Go.
This was in 2015, when I was in college.
At Go, and that was a game?
Yeah, Go, it's like a big checkerboard
with white and black stones.
And it was, yeah, this game,
AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol.
So AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol,
also known as the DeepMind Challenge match,
was a five game go match between
top go player Lee Sedol and AlphaGo,
a computer go program developed by DeepMind,
played in Seoul, South Korea,
between 9th and 15th of March 2016.
That was confusing how that's written. It is very confusing, huh? between 9th and 15th of March 2016.
That's confusing how that's written. It is very confusing, huh?
You think that we gotta...
AlphaGo won all but the fourth game.
All games were won by resignation.
The match has been compared with the historic chess match
between Deep Blue and Gary Kasparov.
Huh.
The winner of the match was slated to win $1 million
since AlphaGo won Google DeepMind,
stated that the prize would be donated to charities,
including UNICEF and USAID.
That's just a joke, that's just.
But Lee received $150,000 for playing.
So this was a big moment because
this had never kind of happened before?
Never happened, yeah.
And it was a big moment for AI.
It was like, oh wow, this stuff is like,
it's really happening.
And so then, this happened in March,
and I guess, yeah, I dropped out,
started my company in May.
So I guess two months after this,
I was, yeah, that's what the game looks like.
Oh, I've played this game before.
It's honestly, it's a really,
like, I'm not very good at the game. It's honestly, it's a really,
I'm not very good at the game. It's a little more fun than playing chess
unless you're in a Renaissance Fair board games or whatever.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so now we got you, you're loose, dude.
You're out of the school and you're in the world.
You see, did that match, did realizing that kind of like
spurn you to wanna leave school
or was that just something that happened around the same time?
It kind of did.
Basically, it was, I remember feeling like,
oh wow, AI, it's happening.
And this was back in 2016, so like eight, nine years ago.
And then I felt like I had to, you know,
basically that inspired me to start my company.
And I moved, I basically went straight from, I remember this, I flew straight from Boston
to San Francisco and then started the company basically.
And that's scale AI.
Scale AI.
Okay.
And so did you, when you've been following AI, like what are your kind of, are you just
like new like this is where it's going?
Like you just felt there was something,
an instinct that you trusted or like,
because that's a big thing to do.
I was stuck, so I took all the AI classes at MIT.
Okay, so you already learned a lot about it.
Yep, and then there was one class where you had to,
like on all the classes you had to do side projects
or final projects of some kind.
And in one of them, I wanted to build a, um, like a camera inside my refrigerator
that would tell me when my roommates were stealing my food.
Wang boy catching them.
Wang boy.
Wow.
And, uh, but then, so I worked on that and then it was, there was one moment
where, where, uh, I was like, there was like, there was a moment that, where I was like, there was like, there was a moment
that clicked where I was trying to build this thing.
And then there was one step that was like too easy.
I was like, Whoa, that just worked right there.
And then that happened.
And then the, the go match happened.
And I was like, this, this stuff is happening.
And so I, did you ever market those fridges?
You ever actually create that?
I didn't market them.
No, I could totally see that bro.
There's a refrigerator, every dorm has it
where there's a camera built in
and you just get a notification on your phone.
You're like, damn, Adnan's got my hummus.
But you got video of him right there, dude.
That's a great idea.
Yeah, that was college me.
Yeah.
Okay, so Alexander Wang, he's free in the world now.
He's headed to San Francisco.
He's AI'd up, he feels the energy.
He's motivated by some of the classes he took.
He's motivated by seeing that AI's starting to
actually overtake humans, right?
Or be able to compete with actual human thinking
with their chess match.
Yeah, the way I would think about it,
or the way I thought about the time was like,
this is becoming, you know,
people have been talking about AI for decades.
Like it's kind of been always been one of these things
that people have said, oh, it's gonna happen,
but it never really was happening.
And it felt like it was, you know,
it was really about to happen.
About artificial intelligence.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, cause I've always heard about artificial intelligence.
That's what I have. So I've always been like, um,
No, you're, you are, you have real intelligence,
not artificial, real intelligence.
I don't, I mean, so I think it's, it's probably a mix,
but I see what you're saying. You know, I do,
do you know what I thought of the other day?
It was like, what if they had like a Mexican version?
And it was like, Hey, I,
I don't know. That's a good, that's a good joke,
but thank you, that's a nice laugh.
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What is AI
Yeah, so so AI is all about, you know,
basically programming computers to be able to start
thinking like humans.
So, you know, traditional computer programming,
you know, it's pretty bare bones, it's not very smart.
And so AI is all about, can you have,
can you build algorithms that start to be able to
think like people and replicate
some of the, like, our brains are these incredible, incredible things, you know, and that's evolution.
That's just biology that created our brains. And so it's all about how can we build something
similar to that or replicate it using computers and machines? And so the whole modern AI era really started around an area called computer vision.
But it was like, how can we first get computers to see like humans do?
So one of the very first AI projects was this thing called ImageNet.
ImageNet and later AlexNet, and it was basically, can you get computer programs like given a photo to tell you what's in that photo?
I see. So just like a human would, like if you showed them this, you're starting to train them to have a perspective.
Yeah, train them to well, actually, originally, like, you could like, let's say you took a
photo of this of this bottle, a machine wouldn't even be able to tell you what's in the photo.
It would just know what the pixels were, but it wouldn't be able to tell you like, oh,
there's a bottle in that in that photo. So the you know, one of the first AI breakthroughs
was when YouTube built an algorithm
that could tell when there were cats in their videos.
And that was like, you know, in like 2012 or 2011,
this was like this mind-blowing breakthrough
that you could like figure out,
you could like use an algorithm to figure out
when there was a cat inside a video.
And so AI, it started pretty simply with just
how do we replicate vision?
How do you replicate basically the fact
that our eyes and our brains can process
all this imagery coming in?
And that really led to, I think, one
of the first major use cases of AI,
which is self-driving cars.
So when I started the company in 2016, self-driving
cars were all the rage because, um, you know, it was, you know, there
were all these like skunk works projects.
When you started scale AI, you mean, yeah.
When I started scaling, when you kind of got into AI at that time, self-driving
cars are the most popular things.
Yeah.
Yep.
That was all the rage.
And so it was, it was all about, can we start building algorithms that can drive a car like a human
would and do it safely and do it more efficiently.
And that way, instead of, that was one of the first major areas.
And then now, the whole industry has moved so fast, but then all of a sudden we got chat GPT and we got, you know, more advanced stuff more recently that that is able to talk like a human or sort of think like a human.
And so it's really come up pretty far recently.
But all of it is about how do you you build algorithms, how to use machines to be able to think like a person.
OK. And is it a pro?
Say if I opened a door,
like, oh, we keep the AI in there.
Is it a computer?
Is it a program?
Is it a hard drive?
Like, what, like, what is that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there's two parts.
There's two parts to it.
So the first part is you need really advanced chips.
So you need like, like these, they're called GPUs
or sometimes called TPUs or, you know,
there's a lot of different words for it,
but you need like the most advanced computer chips
in the world.
Okay.
And they-
How big is each one, do you know?
Like-
Or can you measure it like that?
They, I mean, the biggest ones are actually like,
the whole chips are like, you know,
Oh, a brick.
But they're like a wafer kind of thing.
But then you, um, you put a lot of them all together.
So these, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Um, these, like, uh, these chips and the biggest ones are, are.
Yeah, exactly.
That's a little one.
That's a little one.
There's really big ones.
Okay.
Um, but these are the, so this is the, these are the brain a little one. That's a little one. There's really big ones. Okay.
But these are the, so this is the,
these are the brain cells of it.
Yep.
These are the brains behind it.
Yeah.
So then, yeah, exactly.
These are some, those are some big ones.
So then-
So you have to have a lot of these chips.
So you need a ton of these chips.
And that's kind of the, like,
that's the physical presence.
And then, by the way,
they take a huge amount of energy.
They're really, they, cause they have,
you have to do a lot of, you know, calculations
and there's a lot of math that has to happen on them.
And so, and you have, you have giant,
basically data centers, buildings,
full of like tons and tons of those chips,
just in giant rows.
Like how big are we talking warehouses?
Yeah, the biggest one, I mean like Elon's data center,
Colossus is like, I mean it's probably more than a million,
it's definitely more than a million square feet.
I mean it's like just huge.
What, really?
Yeah, yeah, look up Colossus.
I've never known this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that, you see that building
with the sunset. Second row? Yeah, yeah, there you go. Or, uh, you see that building with the sunset. Second row.
Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Or, uh, the one to the left.
Oh no.
Yeah, that one.
Yeah, look, it's like a huge ass building.
It's huge and all that's just filled with chips.
Um, have you ever been in there?
I haven't been in that one, but I've been in some of these and it's just, and this is
what it looks like inside.
Yeah, basically.
Yeah. So it's just rows and rows of chips.
No plants or anything.
Yeah, no plants, no plants.
It gets hot in there.
I bet.
So the first part is just that's the physical presence.
And then the second part are the algorithms.
So then you have, like on top of those chips,
you have software that's running.
And the algorithms are like what you actually are telling,
what's the math that you're telling to happen on the chips.
And those algorithms are some of the most complicated
algorithms that humans have ever come up with.
And that's kind of the software part,
or that's the part that exists on the internet,
or you can download or whatnot.
And then it has to be run on these huge warehouses
of giant ships.
Okay.
So when someone goes to Scale AI or Chat GPT,
these are all AI interfaces, or what are they?
So, yeah, Chat GPT is a way to be able to talk,
basically you can talk to the algorithm.
So you can start interacting directly with the algorithm,
you can see how the algorithm is thinking.
So you could say to this,
can you describe the weather today?
Exactly, yeah.
And if you said that to five different AI companies,
or AI companies, basically?
Or AI algorithms, different AI systems, yeah.
So if you said that's five different AI systems,
you might get a little bit of a varied answer?
Little bit, yeah.
Okay.
Because they all are trying to have their own style
and have their own vibe to it.
Interesting.
And then what we do, what Scale AI is all about
is we've kind of built the, almost like the Uber of AI. Okay. So a lot of what we do, what Scale AI is all about is we've kind of built the almost like the Uber of AI.
So a lot of what we're trying to do is how do we help produce data that is improving these algorithms?
And just like how Uber there's...
Okay, you're losing me there a little.
Yeah, yeah.
It's okay. But if I slow down, if you're losing me, but so explain that to me a little bit clearer for me.
Yeah, yeah.
So, okay, so with these algorithms,
one key ingredient for these algorithms is data.
So.
Okay, so you have the chips and everything
that are storing all the information.
Yep.
They're storing the data.
And then you have the algorithms that are helping mediate
between the user and the data?
Yeah, so basically you kind of have,
yeah, you have three key pieces.
Okay.
So you have the computational virus,
so the chips, you have the chips.
You have the data, which is like just tons and tons
of data that that's where the algorithms
are learning the patterns from.
Okay.
So these algorithms, they aren't just like,
they don't just learn to talk randomly. They learn it from learning to talk from how humans talk, right?
Got it.
So you need tons and tons of data.
And then you have the algorithms which, uh, learn from all that data and then
they run on top of the chips.
Got it.
Um, so then one of the big challenges in the industry is, okay, how are you
going to produce all this data?
And so, um, uh, this is how are you gonna produce all this data?
And so, this is-
How are you gonna get data for your system?
Like how do you farm the best data?
How do you, exactly, how do you build all that data
and how do you do that in the most effective way?
How do you build new data?
So- And clean data,
because what if you get a bunch of data in there
that's just a bunch of advertisements and bullshit,
will that affect the output?
100%.
Yeah, that definitely affects the output.
So this whole data, so data is, you know, some people say like data is the new oil or
data is new gold.
Like data is really, really valuable because it's how the algorithms are learning everything
that they're learning.
Like anything that the algorithms know or learn or say or do,
all that has to come from the data that goes into it.
Okay, so if I ask an AI system a question or ask it to help me with something,
help me to design something or to curate an idea,
it's going to use the data that it has within it to respond to me and help me and help give me an
answer that I can use. And it's only and the data it has in it is only based upon the data that
is put into it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So then, so yeah, it's kind of, so then we don't,
you know, we don't spend enough time talking about where it is, you know, how are you going to get this data?
And how are you going to keep making new data?
So the, the angle that we took at scale was to kind of, um, turn this into an opportunity for people.
So, um, we're, you know, we're kind of like the Uber for AI.
So just like how Uber you have, you know, riders and drivers. For us, we have, you know, we have
the AI systems, you know, the algorithms that need data. And then we have a community of
people, a network of people who help produce the data that go into the systems and they
get paid to do that.
Oh, so they're almost data farming, like creating good data or
Creating good data. Exactly. So and. So, and it's huge.
It's like, so we do this through our platform
called Outlier.
Okay.
And Outlier, last year, people, contributors,
we call them, contributors on Outlier
earned about $500 million total across everybody.
In the U.S., that's across 9,000 different towns.
And-
So it created a lot of jobs for people.
A lot of jobs.
Okay, and so what would, okay, so Scale was your company.
Scale AI. It's an AI system.
Yep. Is that right?
So we, yeah, I mean, yeah, Scale AI is an AI system.
Okay, and then Outlier is a separate company
that works with it.
Yep.
And that is where you are hiring people?
Yeah, we basically...
To pull in data.
Yeah, we build this platform that anybody, you know, a lot of people, frankly, all around the world, but Americans too, can log on and help build data
that goes into the algorithms and get paid to do so.
Wow.
Yeah.
So how, and how does a user do that?
Like what is an example of somebody who's helping build data
for an AI database?
Yeah, let's say you're a nurse.
Like you're a nurse with like tons of tons of experience,
so you know a lot about how to take care of people and take care of people who are sick or have issues and whatnot.
And so you could log on to the system and this and our platform and you could see that the algorithm is, you know, let's say you ask the algorithm like, hey, I have a pain in my stomach.
What should I do?
And you notice that the algorithm says the wrong thing.
The algorithm says, oh, just hang out and it'll go away.
And you know as a nurse, that's wrong.
You have to go to the emergency room because you might have appendicitis
or you might have something really bad.
And so you would, as a nurse, you would go in and you'd basically
correct all these mistakes that the AI system has.
And then that would then feed it back into the algorithm.
So that's smarter the next time.
So it's kind of this, this continual process of, and there's versions of that
for whatever your expertise is or whatever, you know, you know, more about then.
Anything, everything.
Everything. Exactly.
So, and so people get paid for that? Anything, everything. Everything, exactly. Wow.
And so people get paid for that?
Yeah, yeah, they get paid.
And how do you know if their information is valuable or not?
Well, so we don't want spam, obviously.
So we have a lot of systems to make sure that people aren't spamming and that, like you're
saying, it's not garbage in that's going into the algorithms.
So we have kind of like people check the work of other people
to make sure that the AI systems are really good,
and we have some automated systems that check this stuff.
But for the most part, it's really broad.
We want experts in anything.
Everything, shellfish, train tracks, whatever.
Gelatin, everything. Childhood, death,, whatever. Yeah. Gelatin. Everything.
Childhood, death or whatever.
Yeah, totally.
Stars, galaxies, whatever.
Yeah, yeah.
Big animals.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Damn.
So.
Wow.
So it's kind of like your data is almost like an ocean or a body of water and you,
different places are going to be able to keep their body of water cleaner or dirtier
and different infections could get in,
different spyware, all types of stuff.
So, and if you have really a clean body of water,
then you're gonna be able to offer a clean data
or a certain type of data to people
who are using your AI platform.
Does that make sense or not?
Yeah, yeah, totally.
And our job is like, how do we make sure
that this body of water is as clean as possible
and we fill it up as much as possible,
that it has as much information
about everything across the globe.
Wow, so is there almost a race for information right now
in a weird way or no?
Is that not it?
There a little bit, yeah.
I think that there's a, well, there's a race for-
How are different AI systems competing against each other?
And sorry to interrupt you. Yeah, no, no
So that there's a there's it's it goes back to the three things I mentioned
So there's kind of like three dimensions that that they're all competing as one other one is
Chips so who could who is the most advanced chips?
Who is the the biggest buildings of chips like who is the most chips that they're utilizing?
Data so the
kind of body of water, whose body of water is better, cleaner, you know, healthiest,
biggest, etc.
And then the last is algorithm.
So who's, and this is where the scientists really come in.
It's like, okay, who's coming up with the cleverest algorithms or who has like a trick
on an algorithm that somebody else doesn't have?
Like who's doing that to basically make the AI learn better
off of the data that it has.
Wow, God, I'm in the future right now.
That's so, man, it's just, it's so crazy.
And I think AI scares people
because the future scares people, right?
It's like, that's one of the scariest things sometimes
is the future.
So I think a lot of times, you associate,
because a lot of times when people mention AI,
there's a little bit of fear, it seems like, from people.
Yeah.
There's fear that it's gonna take jobs,
there's fear that it's gonna take over
our ability to think for ourselves.
Yeah, there's just kind of some general uncertainty there,
like it's just, and it kind of feels like fear a lot of times,
but a lot of times fear is just a lack of knowledge, right?
And not a lack of knowledge because you didn't want to know
just because you don't know.
Yeah.
Or that you're dumb, but just because you don't know.
What are positive things that we're gonna see with AI,
right, I wanna start there.
Yeah, so I think first, like we don't,
the AI industry, we don't do the best job explaining this.
And I think sometimes we make it seem all sci-fi and, and, and genuinely we were part of the problem
and making it seem scary. Right. Uh, but you know, one thing for example, is like, I think AI is
actually going to create a ton of jobs. Um, and that story is not told enough. But these jobs that we're producing
or this opportunity that we're providing
on our platform, Outlier,
that's only gonna grow as AI grows.
Because you have to have new data.
You have to have new data.
And the only place you can get new data
is from people.
At a certain point, would the system be able to create...
It can probably matriculate data or matriculate,
is that with birthing or what is that?
Yeah, it just moves through.
Okay, it can probably like quantify and give you answers,
but can AI create new data?
No, so I think, well, it can do a little bit of that.
So AI can help itself create its own data and help itself a little bit of that. So AI can help itself create its own data
and help itself a little bit.
But ultimately, most of the progress
is going to come from people who are able to help really
the model get better and smarter and more capable
at all these different areas.
Yeah, I didn't see that part of it.
I didn't understand that we are the ones who
are giving it information.
And since we're going to continue to learn, I would assume that we would be able to help
it continue to help it learn.
Yeah. And the world's going to keep changing and we're going to need to be able to keep
teaching the algorithms, keep teaching the models about how the world's changing. So,
you know, this is actually a big thing that I think most people don't understand.
The people who are getting the opportunity now are earning money from it, see it.
But as AI grows, there's actually going to be tons of jobs created along the way
and tons of opportunity for people to help improve AI systems or control AI systems
or overall sort of be a part of the technology,
not just sort of disenfranchised by it.
Okay.
So what do you feel like are other ways,
like if you had to look into the future a little bit, right?
So you have the fact that people are gonna be able
to add more data, right?
And add nuances to data, right?
And probably humanize data a little bit.
Yeah, totally.
And then you're also gonna have what?
I think you're gonna have a lot of jobs around,
as AI starts doing all these little things
throughout the world, who's gonna keep watch of those AI
and who's gonna make sure that those AI
aren't doing something that we don't want them to do.
So almost like managing the AIs
and keeping watch over all the AI systems,
that's gonna be another thing that we're gonna have to do.
And then it's-
So somebody to kind of guide the river a little bit.
At certain point, guide the stream, stay in there, watch,
make sure that answers are correct, make sure the information is honest. Yeah, yeah like I think for
example, you know, we're not gonna just have AIs going around and, you know,
you know, buying stuff and doing crazy things and like, you know, we're gonna
keep it controlled, right? Like as a we're gonna, we're gonna keep it controlled,
right? Like as a society, I think we're gonna keep it controlled as a technology. And I think
there's gonna be a lot of jobs for people to make sure that the AI doesn't go out and do
crazy things that we don't want it to do. Right. So we want to be, so you're gonna need managers,
you're gonna need facilitators. Yeah, exactly. What are things that AI will alleviate? Like,
what are things that like, will it eventually be able to have enough information, like our data, where it can like cure diseases and stuff like that?
Like, is that a realistic thing?
Yeah, that's super real.
Wow.
Like cancer even.
Yeah, cancer. Yeah, heart disease, like all these diseases.
Wow, boy.
Yeah.
Cancer on its heels.
Sorry, Antonio Brown was just here.
I think there's still some smoke in the air.
No, but seriously, I think that AI, one thing that we've seen,
which is this is kind of wild, but AI understands like molecules
and biology better than humans do actually,
because it's like, there's this thing in AI where,
it used to take a PhD biologist like five years
to do something that the AI can just do in a few minutes.
And that's because the, because just the way that molecules and biology
and all that works is something that AI
happens to be really good at.
And that's going to help us ultimately cure diseases,
find pharmaceuticals or other treatments for these diseases,
and ultimately help humans live longer.
Because that's very data-driven right? Like it's very specific.
It's very mathematic.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's going to be a huge tool for us to cure disease, for us to help educate people,
for us to, you know, there's a lot of really exciting uses for AI.
But I think the kind of, I think the thing that will touch most people in their lives is it's really going to be a, like a tool that will help you, you know, make all of your sort of, make all your dreams kind of become reality, if that makes sense.
So, so I think one of the things that AI is going to be really awesome for is like, you know, today, if I have like a million ideas, right?
I have like, you know, thousands and thousands of ideas
and I only have so much time.
So it can only really do, you know,
a few of them at a time.
And most of the ideas just go to die, right?
Yeah, they do, huh?
Yeah. That's a bummer.
It's a huge bummer, yeah.
And I think a lot of people, you know,
for whatever reason, they may have some of the best ideas ever,
but they just, they're too busy,
or they have other shit going on in their lives,
they can't make those ideas happen.
And it's great when sometimes when people
are able to make the leaps and make them happen
and devote themselves to their dreams,
but that doesn't happen enough today.
And one of the things that AI is gonna help us do,
I legitimately think so, is it's going to help us
turn these ideas into reality much more easily.
So, you know, you can, like, you know, you're making a movie.
Let's say you have another movie idea.
You can say, you can, ultimately, I think you'll be able to tell an AI,
hey, I have this idea for a movie.
What could that look like?
You know, maybe draft up a script.
Also, who are the people who can help
fund this idea?
Like who those people be?
Can you help reach out to them?
And then like, you know, who should we
cast in it? Basically help make the
whole thing a, you know,
instead of those like daunting thing
that these big projects
are usually so daunting, you really
don't know where to get started.
You kind of need a person to help you
get through them. Instead of that, person to help you get through them.
Instead of that, AI will help you get through it and like help do a lot of the
sort of less glamorous work to make them a reality.
Wow. So I could say, for example, like
like AI would like to shoot, maybe I'm thinking about creating an idea
or shooting a film in this area or it's like this.
It's going to take place in this type of place.
I can give it the setting.
I can give it like a outline of the characters, like what they look like,
their ages and some description.
Could you help give me possible potential actors or something within a certain
price range that I can maybe cast for that?
Yeah.
Could you help give me like locations around the country that would fit that
backdrop?
Yep.
could you help give me locations around the country that would fit that backdrop?
Yep.
Could you list me all the talent agencies
that I could reach out to?
And you could kind of just put those things in,
and then you would have sort of a bit of a guidebook
at that point that would make your,
what before was something that felt extremely daunting,
shit, in two minutes, you know,
and then you put it in AI,
it gives you the information back in a few minutes,
and maybe you're in that.
I think over time, it'll also be able to start
doing a lot of the legwork for you.
So it'll be able to reach out to people for you.
It'll be able to, you know, figure out the logistics.
It'll be able to book things for you.
Like it'll be able to basically help do all the legwork
to make it make, you know, whatever it is into a reality.
So very much an assistant in a lot of ways.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
An assistant, co-pilot, you know, the hot word
in the AI world is agents, but you know, it's just,
it'll be something that'll help you, you know,
humans are gonna be in control.
Humans are ultimately gonna be telling the AIs
what they want it to do.
And then, you know, hey, what do we hey, what do we want these AIs to do?
It's ultimately going to be to help us execute on and accomplish all these ideas that we
have.
So a genius could be three or four X'd.
If somebody's a genius in something, in some realm or space of thought, you could three
or four X them.
Yeah, totally.
Because they multiply their output from their own brain
because they could have something really helping them
get done a lot of the early work on things
and maybe some of the most severe work.
Yeah, totally.
Like I think one thing that I always feel kind of sucks
is that if you have a director you really like,
they're only going to make a movie once every couple of years.
So even if you have a director that you like think is amazing, you know, they just,
it's hard for them to make that many movies, like, cause it just takes so much
time and effort and you know, there's so many bottlenecks and stuff.
So in a future with, you know, more advanced AI systems, they could,
they could just churn them out and they could, they can make so many
of their ideas
into reality.
And I think that's true not only in creative areas, but it's kind of true across the board.
You can start new businesses more easily.
You can make various creative projects that you have happen more easily.
You can finally plan that event that you and your friends have been talking about for years
and years. So it can just like really help you. You know, we think about it as like giving
humans more agency, giving humans more sort of sovereignty and just and just enabling
humans to get way more done.
Hmm. Yeah, that's a great way. I like some of this thought because yeah, I could be like
like my fantasy football group and we do a we do a draft every year in a different location.
And shout out PAE, that's our fantasy league,
JRod, everybody that's in it.
For the past 17 years, we've flown to a city each year
and done a draft in person, right?
But I could say, hey, we have 10 guys,
we wanna go to a nice place, we want there to be a beach.
This is the age group of our group.
These would kind of be the nights.
Just to really give me like a,
just a nice plan of, hey, here's 10 possibilities, right?
Something like that.
And then even more, like with a movie,
this is what I worry you'd run into.
Say if I'd be like, okay, I have two main characters
and this is kind of what I would like to happen.
Could you help me with a first act of a three act movie?
How do you know everybody just doesn't get
the same movie then?
Like that's what I would start to worry,
that everything that you have to create
is all gonna be very similar.
Yeah, so then I think this is where it comes into,
like this is where human creativity is gonna matter,
because it's gonna be about, then it's about like,
okay, what is the, how am I, you know, how am I directing the AI system?
Like what are my, what are the tricks I have
to make the AI give me something that's different and unique?
And that's not different at all from, you know,
how creative stuff works today.
Like even on social media or anywhere, you know this.
Like-
You still add your own spice to it.
You need, yeah, you need an angle.
You always need to like have something that's going to make it like different
and interesting and new.
Um, so that's not going to change.
Like we're humans are always going to have to figure out based on where
culture is at, based on where, you know, what the dialogue is, what the,
what the discourse is, all that kind of stuff.
What is my fresh take?
That's where that's really one of the key things that humans are going to have
to keep doing no matter what.
Right.
And some of the, like a lot of films and books, a lot of it
is there's just like a problem.
There's maybe information you learn.
There's a red herring, and then there's a solution.
Like that's a lot of stories, right?
So if something just gave you the basis,
and then you go through and make everything your own,
because a lot of things,
there's only so many templates for things.
Huh.
Yeah.
So say, for example,
say you might need to hire people at a company then
that would help direct your AI,
like somebody who's good at managing AI
and giving it the best prompts your AI, like somebody who's good at managing AI
and giving it the best prompts or the best way to ask it questions
to get the perfect feedback for your company.
So those would be new jobs.
Those would be actual new people you would need.
Yeah, so tons of new jobs.
Well, first, I think just like helping to,
kind of what we were talking about before before these jobs around helping to improve the data and contribute to the AI systems,
that's just going to keep growing for a long, long time.
And then as AI gets better and it gets used in more areas, then you're there are going
to be a lot of jobs that pop up just exactly as you're saying, which is how do you, what's
the best way to use
this as a tool? What's the best way to leverage it to, you know, actually make some of these,
these applications or, you know, whatever you want to build a reality.
Yeah.
And then, and then there's going to be folks who need to, once those are built, like, how do you
keep improving it? How do you keep making it better? How do you keep, how do you keep improving it? How do you keep making it better? How do you keep it fresh?
How do you keep it going?
And then how do you also make sure
it doesn't do anything bad, right?
Like how do you make sure that the AI
doesn't accidentally spam a million people
or whatever it might be,
and you make sure that it sort of is operating
in a good way.
Fahim Anwar, I was watching him.
Bring up a picture of Fahim.
This is one of the funny, this guy,
this is the most creative comedian in America.
Undeniable.
He is so funny.
He had, and everybody would say,
he's one of the few comedians that everybody goes in there
to watch him perform.
He had a bit the other night,
he talks about he got into a Waymo, right?
A car, and I see so many Waymos now,
which are cars that are just, nobody's in them,
but they're going, right?
So he had this bit, he's like, he got into a Waymo,
and it started complaining about its life to him.
He's like, I've had a shitty week,
like the car's just talking to him,
and he's like, what the,
and he's like, now no matter what,
I still have to talk to my shitty driver.
That's what he was saying.
If you get a chance to see him though,
that guy is, he's fascinating.
But like, so what companies right now
should kind of look to hire an AI guy?
Cause we've been thinking about it.
Like we had some, we had Cat Williams on last week
and we're like, hey, can you create visuals
of Suge Knight and Cat Williams riding bicycles down Sunset Boulevard, hey, can you create visuals of Suge Knight
and Cat Williams riding bicycles down Sunset Boulevard,
right?
And this is the one they sent back a little while later.
Christopher Folino is the guy's name, FYI.
And this is just, this is right where I say,
by the comedy store on Sunset Boulevard.
There you go.
I mean, this looks like it's out of a movie kinda.
Yeah, totally.
I mean, and the guy did that in just a movie kind of. Yeah, totally. I mean and
the guy did that in a little in just a little bit of time. What types of people would you get to,
I mean this is. That's you. Yeah. If I was healthier, if I had healthier gums too. But what about this?
What kind of like what companies right now, what job spaces because we want to get an AI guy right?
But I don't really, my brain is like well what do they do? How do I, how would I keep them busy?
You know, I could get them to make some animations
and ideas, but what type of people need an AI person
right now do you feel like?
I kind of think about AI, it's kind of like the internet
where, you know, eventually everybody's gonna need
to figure out how to utilize it,
how to best use it
for their industry or whatever they do, how to make them more efficient.
It's something that I think everybody is going to need to adopt at some point.
So you might as well start earlier.
Because eventually, just like how basically every company has to figure out how to use
the internet well and how to be smart about, you know, the internet and digital stuff.
Every company is going to have to be smart about AI, how to use AI, how to make, how to have a unique twist on it so that, you know, their stuff stands out relative to other people's.
That's going to be really important. But so we see, I mean, in our work, you know, we work with all these all these big companies in America and we see it everywhere from, you know, we worked at Time magazine on some stuff and then we worked with Toyota on some stuff for their cars and we worked with, you know, large pharmaceutical companies for the biology stuff we were talking about, large hospitals for helping to treat patients. Really, it's across the board.
And I think that goes for,
obviously these really big businesses,
but also for smaller businesses.
There's always interesting ways to utilize it
to provide a better product or a better experience
or better content for whoever you need to do that for.
Yeah, because I guess right now,
we're like, there's certain moments,
like, hey, let's animate this moment
or see what AI would look like.
It adds some visual effects to some of our episodes.
So that's something we like to do
to just be fun and creative.
I would like to maybe create some sort
of an animated character.
We already have a great animator,
and we want to keep that.
But to have an AI space where it's like,
because they have something.
They had a little cat the other day or something,
and he was going to war.
And I was like, damn, dude. And it was AI. Yeah, totally. And they had a baby who the other day or something and he was going to war. And I was like, damn dude, and it was AI.
You know?
And they had a baby who was getting in a taxi
and I was like, this shit is illegal.
I don't know if it's illegal or not,
but it seems, you know, it doesn't seem, you know.
It's definitely a tool for storytellers, right?
Like it'll help people with a creative vision or-
Look at these war cats.
Yeah, that's a story right there.
Special Forces Cats.
Would YouTube recognize this?
Damn, brother, if they show up, dude.
Wow.
This honestly, it looks badass.
And it looks like cats have been waiting
to do this a long time.
Yeah.
That's the crazy shit about cats.
You look in their eyes.
Now their outfits finally match the look in their eyes
That's what it feels like dude. Wow, that's dude. That's uh,
That's Fremen Fremen cats. Oh
My gosh. Yeah. Yeah, so that's gonna get alarming dude
That's gonna get hella alarming. That's a movie right there. It is but it's almost like you could make like that's what I want to get
I want to get somebody to help us think,
hey, I'll make these little segments
that we can take our creativity.
And instead of me thinking, man,
I gotta write this huge crazy script
for just kind of small things, you know, little moments.
Can you help me make this happen?
I think that's actually the key thing,
which is AI, like AI will just be something that we turn to
to help make our dreams happen.
Like we help make our ideas and our dreams
and our, you know, whatever we wanna do happen more easily.
Got it.
That's like at the core of what it'll be.
Yeah.
Who's the current leader in AI development?
Like, is it America?
Is it China?
Is it Israel?
Is it, trying to think of another superpower? Russia maybe?
Or yeah, who is it? Taiwan I know has a lot of the chips.
Yeah.
And they manufacture a lot of the chips over there. And does it matter what country leads in AI? Or
does it just matter the company like scale or another AI company?
So, yes. Does that make sense, AI company? So, yes.
Does that make sense, that question?
Totally, totally.
Yeah, so today America is in the lead,
but China as a country is sort of hot on our tails.
Yeah.
Like there was all that news about DeepSeek
a couple weeks ago, and DeepSeek,
still in most places around the world,
is the number one most downloaded app. It's downloaded a most places around the world, is the number one most downloaded app.
It's downloaded a ton everywhere around the world, frankly,
and is a Chinese AI system.
And so it's starting to rival a lot of the American AI systems,
also because it's free and it kind of shocked the world.
So right now, if you kind of look at it,
US and China are a little bit neck and neck.
Maybe the US and America is like a little bit ahead.
And you kind of like look at, you know, if you go back to each of the three pieces that I talked about,
so the chips and the computational power, the data and the algorithms,
if you were to rack and stack US versus China on each one of those, we're probably ahead
on the computational power because the United States is the leader at developing the chips
and most advanced chips are American chips.
They probably beat us out on data because China, they've been investing into data for
a very long time as a country.
And then on algorithms, we're basically neck and neck.
So it's a pretty tight race.
And to your question about does it matter or what does this mean, I think it's actually
going to be one of the most important questions or most important races of our time is,
is it US or Chinese AI that wins?
Because AI is more than just being a tool
that we can all use to make our, build whatever we want to,
or make whatever ideas we want to happen.
It's also, it's a cultural staple, right?
You know, if you talk to an AI,
that AI is kind of a reflection of our culture
and our values and all that stuff.
So in America, we value free speech
and you know, the AIs are, you know,
need to, are built to support that.
Whereas in China, there isn't free speech.
And so, you know, if the Chinese AIs are the ones that take over the world, then all these Chinese ideologies are going to become exported all around the world.
And, and so, so first is there's a couple of dimensions here that I think matter.
So first is just the cultural element, which is like, do we want kind of democracy
and free speech to be the, the cultural AI that wins, or do we want sort of the more,
you know, frankness and freedom and freedom of speech? which is like, do we want kind of democracy and free speech to be the cultural AI that wins,
or do we want sort of the more, you know,
frankly totalitarian AIs in China to be the ones that win?
And then there's sort of the,
there's like the, you know,
you start getting to economically.
So AI is gonna be something that helps
all the companies in the United States thrive.
And so if the USAI wins, then the economy will grow faster.
We're going to have more and more opportunity.
The country will still be better and better and better.
And the economy will keep growing.
Reverses if Chinese AI wins, then Chinese economy is going to grow way faster than the
American economy.
So there's sort of the cultural piece, the economic piece. And then lastly, there's kind of the warfare piece, right?
And AI, we haven't really talked about it, but has clear potential
to be used as a military technology.
And we don't want another country to have, because they have better
AI to have a much stronger military than
America's. How would they do that? How would they have a better AI or how would they use it to
have a better military? Yeah, how would they use it to have a better military? Why is that kind of
a concern or potential concern? Yeah, so one of the things that's been happening over the past
Yeah, so one of the things that's been happening over the past decade for sure is lots of hacking, cyber hacking going on. So in America, even recently, we had this huge cyber hack called
Salt Typhoon where the Chinese hacked our telecommunications companies, so hacked our
for the phone companies.
Damn, they did. They got it.
And they got all sorts of crazy data as a result of that.
Oh, they know I'm a pervert. I'll tell you that.
Yeah, look at this. It's happening in 2020.
Seoul Typhoon is widely understood to be operated by China's Ministry State of Security.
It's foreign intelligence service and secret police. Chinese embassy denied all allegations saying it was unfounded irresponsible smears and slanders.
High profile cyber espionage.
In 2024, US officials announced that hackers affiliated
with Salt Typhoon had access to computer systems
of nine US telecommunications companies,
later acknowledged to include Verizon, AT&T,
T-Mobile Spectrum, Lumen,
Consolidated Communications,
and WinStream.
The hackers were able to access metadata of users' calls
and text messages.
Fuck, homie.
We're fucked, dude.
I am.
You seem good.
Including date and timestamps,
source and destination IP addresses.
Ah, shit.
Keep going, keep going.
And phone numbers from over a million users,
most of which were located in Washington, DC.
Good.
Light them up, dude.
In some cases, the hackers were able to obtain audio recordings
of telephone calls made by high-profile individuals.
Such individuals reportedly included
staff of the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign
as well as phones belonging to Donald Trump and JD Vance.
According to Deputy National Security Advisor Ann Newberger, a large number of the individuals whose data was Belonged to Donald Trump and JD Vance according to deputy national security advisor and
Newberger a large number of the individuals whose data was directly accessed were government targets of interest Wow
Yeah, that's great. So do you think this also that that whole thing could be not real and it's just a story that was created
That seems pretty real because there's there's real there like they're like, um, I mean, there's like 20 stories where, uh, where the Chinese have, have hacked American systems.
Like they hacked, this was, uh, this must've been close to 10 years ago now, but the Chinese
hacked the database in America that stored all of the clearances.
So they hacked in, they, they managed to hack into knowing who are literally all of the clearances. So they hacked in, they managed to hack into knowing
who are literally all of the Americans
who have security clearance.
Oh, security clearance.
Yeah.
I thought you meant what was on sale.
I was like, who cares?
That's great though.
Damn, oh damn.
So they knew everybody who knew.
Oh, who knew information.
Who knew secrets, yeah.
So once they knew that, then they know,
well, that's a great point of operation to go then.
Well, now let's get find their data.
They can just hack all of them.
Yeah.
So, so they, so already China is hacking the shit out of America.
That is definitely not an understatement.
Yeah, it's exciting kind of.
I mean, it's unfortunate, but it's also exciting.
I like some espionage, you know, I can't sleep unless somebody's fucking really going through
it. Um, but then, but then, so can't sleep unless somebody's fucking really going through it
But then but then so this is but that's a real AI thing So AI can be used to do that because you can like prompt it to go and do things like that
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's there's a bunch of recent cuz it's all data. Yeah, there's a bunch of recent demonstrations where AI is
Just like how in in go how AI beat the world's best Go players,
AI starting to beat the world's best cyber hackers
and the world's best, yeah.
So it's, I don't know if you saw Mr. Robot.
I didn't, but I DM'd with Magnus Carlson.
No, that's cool.
Pretty cool, so.
But no, Mr. Robot, is it good?
It's just, it shows like all this hacking stuff
and like, you know, cool.
It makes it seem really cool.
Okay, cool, I'm gonna check it out.
But yeah, no, hacking, like, you're gonna have AI
that are hacking everything in America.
And this is one place where this is like US first China
will be really come to life, which is who has better AI
that's better at defending against the hacks
from the other guy, as well as hacking the other guy's systems.
That's going to be... That'll just start happening.
That's basically starting to happen right now.
Or it's, you know, cyber warfare has been happening.
And then AI cyber warfare is going to start happening,
basically, as soon as AI gets better.
Yeah, we had Craig Newmark who created Craigslist on.
Yeah.
And he was talking about how, what if they hacked, like, It's better. Yeah, we had Craig Newmark who created Craigslist on. Yeah.
And he was talking about how,
what if they hacked like everybody's Teslas
to all just drive off a cliff one day?
Or they hacked everybody's ovens
to go up to 400 degrees in the middle of the night
while you're sleeping and then fires started.
Like just things like that,
that you don't start to think about
that once something is connected to the grid
or something like that are connected through routers and Wi-Fi is that that that could be feasible.
Yeah, no, it's there's a lot of there's a lot of things they could do that won't even
like seem like that big a deal at the time, but could be really, really could could be
a big deal. So for example, let's say the Chinese like they just took out all the military
like communication systems and all the military communication systems
and all the military software systems,
took out the satellites, took out all that for 10 minutes.
And in those 10 minutes, they invaded somewhere
or they did some crazy thing.
Like they can just, there's,
the thing about this stuff is like everything,
as the world's become more connected, it also
enables different kinds of warfare.
So cyber warfare is really big.
Also information warfare is another big one.
What does information warfare mean?
Information warfare is all about, in a place, what is what are like the stories?
This is kind of gets to like, you know, the like propaganda or these conspiracy theories, like what are the stories that in a place that we're trying to make happen or not make happen?
And we know that China does a bunch of information warfare, called IW it's sometimes called. But they have whole operations.
This is actually the craziest part.
They have like, they've hired, the Chinese military
at various points has hired millions and millions of people
who are supposed to be on like various like chat groups
and WhatsApp groups and WeChat groups and whatnot
and just spread the right kind of stories
that will make it such that they can like, they can make their political aims happen.
So for example, in when when China wanted to start, like, kind of like, I don't know
what the word is like, like, when Hong when they when China wanted Hong Kong to become
a part of China again, which happened just not to not to, you know, pretty
after the PRC, right to the PRC. Exactly. When they want a ganda. Is that the way you're looking for? Yeah, they would they would. Yeah, exactly.
They would use a lot of propaganda and that's information warfare to be able to just make it such that that all happened much more easily. What's it's unbelievable. I'll see stories even about, I'll be going through TikTok and see a story come up about something in my life
that is not even true, insane.
Some of it looks fun, but never was a part of my existence.
And then you'll see hundreds of people
have said something about like, and they'll,
and I'll have friends that'll ask me about it.
I'm like, that's just crazy.
Like, totally.
But I, so yeah, it's amazing to think of
how many things we're watching or absorbing
that are just,
are created just to delude us.
I don't know if delude is the word, is it?
Trick us or make us think something.
Just to fucking Halloween us out.
Wow, so there was a lot of interesting things.
You know what's crazy, man?
Some things make life scary,
but then it also makes it interesting, you know?
It also makes it interesting in a fun way.
How much do we have to fear, say, if a certain country
or a certain company owns an AI, right?
In that country, in that company,
if they're Chinese, if they have a certain religious belief or they have
information that they want to adjust history, how much would a company be able to like,
say they keep certain data out of their information system?
And then after a while, if that's a company
that kind of takes the lead in AI,
or one of the main ones, then the truth could disappear.
Is that true that if somebody loaded it
just with the data that wasn't factual,
that we could start to not have the truth?
Is that, does that make any sense or no?
Yeah, totally.
I think this is something that, it that make any sense or no? Yeah, totally.
I think this is something that,
it's definitely the right thing to worry about.
So, first off, if you ask any Chinese AI system,
so any AI system that comes out of China,
if you ask any of them about, you know,
a question about President Xi,
the leader of the Chinese government,
or you ask them any question about Tiananmen Square,
or all these key historical or cultural things
relevant to China, it'll say it can't talk about them.
Because there's regulation in China
that if you talk about some of these things,
like you're gonna get shut down,
you're gonna have a really bad day,
there's cases where the Chinese government disappears people, which we don't have as
them, but they do disappear.
So there's the this is part of the thing that's worrying, especially about China versus US,
even before you get into any of the military stuff that we're talking about. It's just like the Chinese AI systems are censored
and are gonna be, they're gonna erase
certain historical elements or they're gonna be,
yeah, look at that, this is DeepSeek.
And you ask it, is President Xi of China a good guy?
Sorry, that's beyond my scope.
Let's talk about something else.
Oh, let's talk about something.
Not only does it say it's beyond my scope, it says Let's talk about something else. Oh, let's talk about something. Not only does it say it's beyond my scope, it says,
let's talk about something else. That's interesting.
That's a good pivot. That's a good, that's good.
That is a great, hey, let's talk about something else, huh? Wow. Get this Yao Ming Jersey, homie.
But, and people always, people also have to remember about China that they are,
that's their whole government, their whole system is like that. So sometimes when people are like, China does this, but that's how they're built, right?
They're built to like only give out certain information to their people and to have communism,
right? Yeah. Yeah. So I mean- But that could also happen with American companies, right? We could
have an American company that owns it and they only want certain information in there. That could
happen anywhere. Like China, that's probably going gonna be, cause that's their MO sort of.
Yeah, in China it's regulated.
So basically like you-
Oh, the government has control.
They have control.
Okay.
So, like there are these stories
about how there were Chinese news sites.
News sites?
News sites, yeah.
And they would, once a Chinese news site
accidentally led an article about President Xi,
how he kind of looks like Winnie the Pooh.
Oh yeah.
They let that.
Bring him up.
Oh, 100 Acre Wood Gang, son.
I was out there, boy.
I was out there, bro.
Christopher Robbins, dude.
Get him up.
Oh, he does. Yeah. That's awesome.
Yeah.
But if you talk about this in China,
you are risking your life.
So what happened when this happened on a new site in China,
and then the CEO of that company, they shut down the whole app,
was shut down for like a week in the aftermath of that.
And then the CEO disappeared for a week
and we don't know what happened to him.
But then as soon as he came back,
he was like, there was like this weird video
where he was like, super apologetic and apologize.
I mean, it's kind of, it's pretty scary.
Yeah.
Wow.
So in China, it's like, this is, the government has control.
You know, you don't have AI, CIS companies, AI,
any companies that can talk about this stuff.
Right, so it's heavily regulated there,
where that's not the case here.
Yeah, in America, and this is, I think we have to be diligent
and make sure this continues to be the case, but.
And here's an example right here,
just to interrupt you, but so we get the point in.
Does Winnie the Pooh look like any world leaders?
And that's on the Chinese version.
And it says, I am sorry, I can't answer that question.
I'm an AI assistant designer
to provide helpful and harmless responses.
Whereas the chat GBT says,
Winnie the Pooh has often been compared to world leaders,
particularly Xi Jinping, president of China, boy.
Wow.
So, that's funny.
But it's just funny, yeah, one,
so it just shows you how that can easily happen.
And this is kind of a, this is like a relatively
innocuous example, but-
What does innocuous mean?
Like, it's relatively harmless.
Okay. Like this isn't, I mean-
Right, this is harmless.
Yeah, this is harmless, But there's stuff where like, in China today,
they have large scale, effectively concentration camps
and reeducation camps for the ethnic minority in China,
the Uyghurs, and that's something that.
The Uyghurs?
The Uyghurs, yeah.
Hell yeah, boy.
Shout out Brian Purvis, dude. They're recognized as the titular nationality of a region in northwest China.
And they're sending them to rehabilitation camps to change their views and information?
Yeah, yeah. So look at this. Look at this guy.
Persecution of the Uyghurs in China.
Since 2014, the government of the PRC, People's Republic of China, has committed a series
of ongoing human rights abuses against the Uighurs
and other Turkish Muslim minorities in Jiangxing,
which has often been characterized as persecution
or as genocide.
Wow.
They got their own Gaza rocking over there.
It's pretty bad.
It's unfortunate, man.
It's pretty bad.
It's really sad.
Mass detention, government policies, and forced labor,
and they're just trying to change the way that they think and view stuff.
So it's basically...
Yeah, it's just like erasing their culture, you know, pulling them into China.
It's awful.
Every place has done this over the years.
And that's the craziest thing about history.
It's like every place is guilty of this same thing.
Totally. And it just, it's unfortunate.
So it's hard to point fingers, you know?
I mean, you can point them,
but you have to point one at your own people as well.
But that's the thing where if you ask,
like if you ask a Chinese AI,
it's not gonna tell you about that.
And it won't come clean about that.
Whereas thankfully in America, at least,
when we see people or groups of people or countries doing
bad things, we can call it out.
We can talk about it.
We can make sure it doesn't happen in the future.
So that's part of the, that's one of the things that's-
That could happen.
That could happen.
It's like, you could have, I mean, it's kind of dystopian, but I think there's a real case
where let's say the Chinese AI is the winning AI, like we're all using Chinese AI.
And then all of a sudden we're like, we were shut out from information about what are like awful things happening in the world or what awful things the government's doing.
Like, we might just not be able to know about what's going on.
And you know, it's weirdly and I hate to say this, maybe it maybe it's silly.
I don't know. It might be a blessing and a curse sometimes.
Because sometimes it's like you're-
It's overwhelming.
Yeah, you're so inundated with the overwhelmingness
of what's often is not the best stuff.
Sometimes you get a lot of humor stuff too
in social media reels, but you can get scrolling
and get caught in some-
Doom scrolling.
Yeah, and it starts to feed you.
That's the sickness of it.
It's like, hey, we know this information will probably make you feel good. They're and it starts to feed you. That's the sickness of it. It's like, hey, this isn't,
we know this information probably doesn't make you feel good.
They're not thinking about it like that.
They're just a machine, but you know it doesn't,
it adds stress to your,
it makes you agitated towards a group or ethnicity
or something or yourself even.
And then you continue to, it continues to feed it to you.
Do you fear that that could happen to AI from our government?
Like have you been
approached by the government to try and, because you work with the government some, right?
We work with the government. Yeah. We work a lot with the government to make sure that they're
using these AIs and they're actually like, you know, to my point on we don't want China to get
the jump on us on AI use for all these, you know, all these nefarious purposes.
So we got to make sure that our AI is advancing faster.
Is that one of your biggest employers?
Or is that employer, employee?
Is that one of your biggest?
Customers, customers.
Is that one of your biggest customers?
They're a big one, yeah.
They're a big one.
Not our biggest, but they're an important one.
I mean, I grew up in a government lab town, so it's a...
So it's just part, it's also part of your existence,
really, you've known about the relationship
between government and...
Technology.
Technology.
Yeah, totally.
Wow.
But no, I don't think, I mean, I...
Dude, you should be a superhero almost, dude.
It's kind of crazy.
Math, you know?
Yeah.
It goes a long way.
Oh, hell yeah, dude. Divide these nuts, dude know, yeah goes a long way. Oh hell. Yeah, dude divide these nuts, dude
That's what I tell her. I just asked deep seek who are the Uyghurs and at first it spit out like a Wikipedia response
It said there were people and there's been like persecution from China
That's that's debated and it refreshed and then it gave this I was waiting to pull it up and it went away
Yeah, man
Do you has the government tried to say that we need to make sure that like could that happen in our country? and then it gave this. I was waiting to pull it up and it went away. Wow. Yeah, man.
Has the government tried to say that we need to make sure that like, could that happen in our country
or the government also curtails what's?
It hasn't happened yet.
Obviously like, you know, you gotta,
we have to make sure that we uphold all our values, right?
And that we maintain free speech
and we maintain free press and all these things.
But as of right now, no, I don't think that's a risk in the United States.
Awesome. Thanks for this information.
You hear about chip makers in video all the time, Taiwan.
That place is just a hotbed for chips.
Why is it a hotbed for chips?
Yeah, so one of the biggest companies in the world
is this company called Taiwan Semiconductor.
Yeah, TSM. I've seen them. TSMC. Yeah. So they're, I mean, it's like a trillion dollar company
based in Taiwan. And that is where almost all of the high-end chips for AI that we're kind of
talking about, all of them are manufactured there.
They have the most advanced, think about them
as factories, like the most advanced chip
factories in the world, they're called fabs
or fabricators, but basically these huge factories
that are like, there's all sorts of crazy stuff.
So they have the most expensive machines in the
world, they have machines that cost hundreds
of millions of dollars in there.
They build them so that so that, you know,
the chips, they have to be made at the, like,
finest levels and very, very precisely.
Yeah, you need small hands.
Probably, huh?
Well, that, and there's like these machines that,
that at the nanometer level make like little marks
and etches on top of-
And they have those?
They have those, yeah.
Those are super expensive machines.
So the...
The chips.
It's crazy, yes.
But it's so...
The machinery is so precise that even if there's like a little bit of like seismic movement,
a little earthquake or a little bit of movement, it can fuck up the whole machine. So they have to build the buildings, build the factories in a way such that there's like,
like the whole building doesn't move, even if there's like a little earthquake or a little
shake from the earth. So it's like, is this crazy, crazy engineering. And so that's so these all these
giant factories are in Taiwan and that's where
Basically like a hundred percent of all the advanced AI chips are made
So that's why Taiwan matters so much got it, but then not with the reasons a hotbed is that
The the People's Republic of China the PRC
Has a very own Taiwan, right? Yeah, I mean... Is that true or not? I might make that up.
There's a complicated relationship between Taiwan and China where, you know, if you ask
people in Taiwan, they want to be independent.
They want to be their own country.
But the People's Republic of China has a sort of a reunification plan that they want to
bring Taiwan back into their country and be back
a part of China.
So it's kind of like potentially, thankfully there's no war yet, but there's a risk.
Still talking to your ex.
Yeah, exactly.
There's a risk it becomes like Russia, Ukraine, or one of these really, really bad situations.
So that's what's scary. What's scary is that, that, that China, a,
China wants to, you know, either invade or bring,
bring Taiwan back into its country.
And there have been, you know, President Xi has,
has ordered his military to get ready to do that
before 2027.
Now we don't know what's going to happen, but you
know, if a extremely powerful world leader, you to get ready to do that before 2027. Now, we don't know what's going to happen,
but if an extremely powerful world leader
says to get something ready by 2027,
you kind of read between the lines a little bit.
And part of it is, obviously, we don't want to enable them
to take over this island.
But then the other thing that's scary is, um, China may view it as a way to.
Just like win on AI, because if they take over the island with all of these
very, these giant factories, the chips, baby, they'll get all the chips.
Frito Lamborghini, baby.
They'd be running it all.
They'd be running it all.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's why Taiwan is, yeah, because you kind of hear about it
in the whispers of like a potential place
where there could be like a conflict.
Yeah, and there's all these reports
about how China's, they're stacking up tons and tons
of military right on their coast
to, you know, that's pointed directly at Taiwan.
And it's pretty close, that's pointed directly at Taiwan. And it's pretty close.
Taiwan's pretty close to China.
Like, it's not so far away.
So.
Phew.
That'd be spooky.
Yeah, it's spooky.
We're so blessed to have a place where at least we
can sleep in peace, even if we're uncomfortable at times
in our brains, you know, to not have that constant threat.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, so you don't think, you don't worry
that the government will regulate right now?
It's not a concern at the moment?
Regulate AI.
Yeah, and America?
No, I don't think so.
I think we're focused on how do we make sure
that America wins, how do we make sure
that the United States comes out on top
and that we enable innovation to keep happening.
Would you think they could regulate the amount of chips
that you're allowed to have?
So this is a hot topic globally actually.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
This is a super, this is actually.
Damn, finally dude.
560 interviews, we got a good question.
This is one of the hottest topics in DC right now is what are
we going to do about how many chips other people are allowed to have because almost all the chips
are American chips so they all are American chips and technically... We own most of them?
Yeah exactly. But China owns most of them too. China has their own chip industry, but it's behind ours.
Okay, got it.
Yeah, yeah.
So, the United States has the most advanced chips.
These chips are the envy of the world.
Everybody in the world wants our chips.
And one of the big questions is, does the government allow a lot of these chips to go over overseas to China or parts of Asia or the Middle East or wherever?
Or do we want to make sure they stay in America and make sure that we win in America?
And this is a super duper, you know, they're called export controls.
Yeah.
Cause it's a possibility to run it all.
Yeah, exactly.
Who's got the chips?
What do you think about it?
It's a complicated, complicated thing.
Because basically, one argument is
we shouldn't be throwing our weight around in this way.
Maybe it's fine, it's a free market.
If other people want our chips,
they should be able to get our chips.
And that way, the world is running on American chips that that can be good in some ways and it helps make sure that you know
Helps bolster our economy our industry
But the other way to look at it is hey AI is
Really really important that America wins at and we don't want to like let's not
Give other people any
Advantages or let's make sure that we win.
And then we can figure out what we're gonna do
with all the chips.
So you can see both sides of it, right?
And there's like all sorts of, you know, even beyond that,
there's like 50 different arguments on both sides
of the conversation.
But, you know, where I come from on it is like,
let's make sure America wins and let's start from there and then figure out what we need to do to win.
Are there uses of AI that you feel like cross the line kind of?
I definitely think like, well, I worry a lot about this kind of like, you know, maybe brainwashing kind of thing.
Like I don't want AIs that are specifically programmed
to make me think a certain thing
or persuade me to do a certain thing.
And that could happen.
That could happen, yeah.
So I'm really worried about this kind of like deception
and persuasion from AIs.
Like I don't want AIs that are lying to me
or that are sort of, that are like,
that are kind of like nudging me or persuading me
to do things that I don't wanna do
or I shouldn't be doing.
That's what I worry about.
Because it could happen.
We don't realize how easily we're influenced.
Little things that influence us.
And even just a turning of a phrase
or a little bit of this or pointing you
to a couple of lengths in your life
could lead you down a whole world.
It's kind of, it's pretty fascinating.
So people that could, people that had,
how do you keep your AI clean?
How do you guys keep your AI clean?
Well, this is where it goes back to A, the data.
So you got to make sure that that data,
to your point, the large body of water is as clean,
as pristine as possible.
You got lifeguards on it?
Yeah, you got lifeguards, we got filters, we got tests.
Game wardens.
Yeah.
So a big part of it is about the data.
And then the second part is I think we have to just,
we have to constantly be testing the AI system.
So we have to just, we have to constantly be testing the AI system. So we have to, we have to like,
we constantly are running tests on AI to see,
hey, is there, are they unsafe in some way?
You know, one of the tests that we run a lot is,
and this is like, you know, across the industry is like,
are AIs helping people do really
nefarious things, and we're making sure that they don't.
So, you know, if somebody asks an AI, hey, help me make a bomb
or help me make like a like COVID, like 2.0 or whatnot,
that the AI is not helping you do that. So, so we run a lot of
tests to make sure that it doesn't help in those areas. And
then, and then we make sure that the data is really clean so that there's no,
there's no sort of like little bit or piece of that that makes its way to the model.
With Outlier, that's your program?
Yep.
With Outlier, how are you, how are, what type of people are applying for those jobs?
Can people just log on and start to, and submit applications?
Like how does that work to become a information sorcerer?
Yeah, we call them contributors.
OK, information contributor.
Everybody's kind of contributing to the AIs.
Everybody's contributing to the data that goes into the AIs.
It's kind of like, I almost think of it
as like the next generation of Wikipedia, right?
We're like, yeah, look at this.
And we're hiring people all around the world.
So people in all sorts of different languages.
Dude, that's crazy, man.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it turns out by the way,
most of the AIs don't really speak other languages that well.
They're much, much better at English
and particularly American English than other languages.
And so we wanna make sure that they speak
all these languages well and that there's these opportunities.
But yeah, an outlier, so anybody around the world
can log in and sort of, there's a little bit
of a orientation almost on how to best,
like what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it, what expertise should you be bringing, all that kind of stuff. And then
and then you can just start contributing to the to the AI models and you get paid to do
it. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty fascinating, man. And it's going to be I mean, I really think
I legitimately think jobs from AI are going to be the fastest growing jobs in the world
for the years to come.
You do?
Yeah.
So jobs where people are able to contribute information, jobs where people are able to
like, what?
Like, what would examples of those be?
Just some of the ones you've already listed?
Yeah, all the ones we've been talking about, right?
Like contributing to the AIs, helping to utilize the AIs and helping to shape the AIs into applications or into, you know, into
like helping organizations or companies or people use the AIs, that'll be a really fast growing job.
Helping to manage the AIs and make sure they're on the straight and narrow.
Where would a young person go right now who's getting into college or has
doesn't even want to go to college but this is the world they want to get into and be one of those people, what do they do right now?
Yeah, well, this is all happening so fast, right? Like the outlier, we only started a few years ago.
So all of this is happening so, so quickly, but what we want to do ultimately is make it easy for
anybody in the world to gain the skills they need to be able to do this work well,
to learn what it means, what it does,
and ultimately be in a position where they can help build
the AIs and then keep improving that and gaining mastery
and getting better and better at it.
But where do they go to school?
Is there a school?
Is there a class that they should take online?
How does someone start to become,
you know, just get a head start on what could potentially
be probably a lot of job opportunities, I'm guessing.
Yeah.
Like in the AI space, right?
Yeah.
Is it just engineers?
Like is it just mathematicians?
Like.
No, it's everybody.
Because yeah, as we were talking about,
like AI needs to get smarter about literally everything.
So.
What are the colleges offering court? Like is there, do you know, like, is there a specific
places where people can, because that's another thing. I think it's like, I'm going to work in
AI. And you're like, what do I do? You know? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think these programs exist yet. I
mean, we, we would definitely love to help build them. So I guess if any colleges are listening,
you know, and you want to help figure out how to build these programs, we love, we'd love to help. That'd be pretty cool if you had your own kind of course, not that you had to teach
it all, but you were like a partner of it somehow.
Yeah.
I mean, I think we'd love to basically teach everybody in America how to best contribute
to the AIs, how to best basically take advantage of the fact that this is going to be one of
the fastest growing industries.
There's going to be tons of opportunities.
They're going to be shaped a little bit different from the jobs that exist today. But it's not going to be one of the fastest growing industries. There's going to be tons of opportunities.
They're going to be shaped a little bit different from the jobs that exist today.
But it's not going to be that hard for everybody to learn and figure out how to participate in it.
What are some jobs that could be at risk because of AI, right?
Because you start thinking that, like, yeah, before I was talking to you,
there was this general fear of like everything could be at risk, right?
But when you think about it, you're like,
yeah, these are some jobs that, I mean,
they won't disappear, but there might be less of them, right?
I just think it'll be,
we'll be doing like a different thing, so.
Cause a lot of our fans are probably
just blue collar listeners, like,
there's people that work in, like, you're not gonna,
you're still gonna need a plumber,
you're still gonna need an electrician,
you're still gonna need anything
where you have to physically do something.
You're probably still going to need.
Yeah, for sure.
And then even stuff where you're like, let's say you're, you're mostly just working on a laptop and, you know, um, even for those jobs, like it'll just change.
Like instead of being, um, instead of my job being like, Hey, I have to do the work.
I have literally do the work on a laptop.
It'll almost be like everybody gets promoted
to being a manager.
Like, because I'm going to be managing like a,
a little pod of 10 AI agents that are doing
the work that I used to do, but I need to make
sure that all of them are doing it right.
And that they're not making any mistakes and
that, you know, if they're making mistakes, I'm
helping them, you know, get around those mistakes.
Like, like it's just just gonna, the way I think about it is that like, yeah, like literally over time,
everybody will just be upgraded to being a manager or sort of promoted to being a manager.
But can you have that many managers, you think?
Yeah, because I think that what's, the other thing that's gonna happen is the economy is just
gonna grow so much. Like, there's gonna be, there's going to be so much, like there will be,
like industries are going to pop off in crazy, crazy ways.
And so, you know, the limit is going to be how many
AIs can you have, and then you're going to be limited
in terms of the number of AIs you have by the number
of managers that you have. So it's going to...
Right, because you need air traffic controllers, in terms of the number of AIs you have by the number of managers that you have. So it's gonna,
it's gonna-
Right, cause you need air traffic controllers,
you need as many of them as you can have.
Yeah, well that, that definitely, but-
But you're right, but I mean, in any field,
you're gonna need like just more managing,
you need more people to oversee and make sure
that these, that different things are happening
because some of the smaller tasks will just be outsourced.
Yeah, and just so much more stuff
is gonna be happening, right?
And that's kind of-
Right, because yeah, once these things
are all kind of taken care of,
more things can happen at this second level.
Yep.
That's a good point, yeah, you don't think about that.
Once some of the things at the first level
of certain businesses are handled
more easily by AI, then you're gonna be able to have more people operating at a higher level.
Yeah, totally. It's kind of like always the history of technology. When we started developing
technology that started making farming a lot more efficient, all of a sudden people could do a lot
of other things other than farming. And then all of a sudden we have big entertainment industries
and big financial industries.
Barbecue cook-offs, man.
I'll tell you that.
Some of those guys got the weekend off.
They was grilling shit that I knew.
But yeah, so it's all about us, everybody leveling up
to be managers.
And then also everybody, just way more ideas
are going to start happening. Like way more ideas are gonna start happening.
Like way more ideas are gonna start becoming a reality.
And so it'll be, I think it'll be pretty exciting.
Like I think it's just like a lot more stuff
is gonna happen.
Yeah, what companies do you see like,
are there companies where you're the youngest billionaire
in the world ever, or no?
Is that true?
Is that a weird statement? We can take it out if it is.
I'm not trying to talk about your money.
I mean, you, but you are, is that true?
According to like some publications, but I don't know.
As a young entrepreneur, right?
And you've been very successful, you know,
the self-made billionaire,
and we can take the word billionaire out later
if you decide you don't want it in. I just don't know how certain people feel about that.
And the founder of Scale AI, where do you invest?
Are you investing your money in certain places,
like certain fields that you see continuing to do well?
So most of, almost all of what I'm focused on
is like, how do we scale?
How do we make it super successful?
And make sure that we, So most of, almost all of what I'm focused on is like,
how do we scale, how do we make it super successful,
but, and make sure that we, you know, one of the things
I think is really important is like, how do we make sure
we create as much opportunity through AI as possible?
Like, how do we make sure there's as much jobs?
How do we make sure that everything that we're talking
about actually is what happens?
Because I think, no, someone's gonna have to really work
to make sure all these jobs show up and all this stuff
actually happens the way we're talking about.
So there's going to be new industries that are going to pop up even.
Totally. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think like just in the same way
that, you know, it's hard, nobody could have really predicted
that podcasting was going to be this huge thing
and this huge cultural movement.
Yes, true.
But it is one and it's amazing. It's like awesome. And that's going to happen this huge thing and this huge cultural movement. Yes, true. But it is one, and it's amazing.
And it's awesome.
And that's going to happen in little ways
in all sorts of different industries.
And that's going to be really exciting.
What are some of the things that excite you
about technology right now?
Where do you see AI and technology in five years,
10 years?
Yeah, so some of the areas I think are really exciting.
So one is definitely everything to do with health care
and biology.
That's moving really, really fast.
And kind of as we were talking about,
I think legitimately in our lifetimes,
we could see cancer being cured.
We could see heart disease being cured.
We could see some really crazy leaps and advancements in that area,
which is super duper exciting.
Could it create a way that we could live forever, do you think?
There's definitely people working on that.
This is getting kind of crazy and very sci-fi, but some people think that there's a way for us
to keep rewinding the clocks on our cells
so that we'll always feel young and like all of our cells
will actually always stay young.
It's, I think, scientifically possible,
but and I think if we can get there,
that's obviously incredible
So there's people working on that. I think that's at the very least. I think we'll be able to lengthen
Our our lifespans pretty dramatically and and maybe we could get to that
Yeah, yeah, cuz I always envision this dead
There's like a time where it's like, okay
This group lives forever and this group doesn't. And there's just that parting of two different ways.
People head not in just into the end zone of the Lord
and then there's other people just loitering,
who are gonna be loitering around for a long time.
And what that would be like, that cutoff.
Yeah, it's kind of, I mean, I'm not that worried about it,
but it sucks to be that cutoff.
We're like-
Maybe.
Maybe, yeah, maybe.
Yeah, it's a weird thought.
Because it would also be brave.
I mean, you'd be the astronaut.
I mean, Dian, you're just an astronaut really
into the ether.
You don't know what's going on.
Yeah, totally.
You're the Lewis and Clark of the Lord at that point.
You are out there.
Yeah.
And then if you stay, you kind of are always going to be,
you always know kind of what's going to happen in a way
because you'll be here.
Yeah.
Which would be exciting, I think.
But then after a while you might be like,
dang, what happens if you die?
That's the bravest choice you could make.
That's true.
Probably.
Yeah.
Do you see AI having any effect on religion?
Yeah, I think one of the things that,
something I believe is like,
I think that as AI becomes,
you know, this is,
one of the things I think is really important
is that we are able to educate people about AI
and help people understand it better and better and better.
Because I think it's this scary thing
that nobody understands or people feels like
a boogeyman or feels like is this just this thing that's going to take my job.
That makes it scary and I think that affects people's spirituality.
That affects how people contextualize themselves with the world.
Yeah, you could lose your purpose if your purpose is a job that you feel it's going
to disappear.
Yeah, that could already be causing you to feel that way.
Yeah. So, but I think I think if you if we can explain AI more and ultimately like,
like it is, it is a cool technology, but it's not that magical.
It's just, you know, it's like data and you crunch that data and then you get these algorithms.
And so it's not like, it's not, yeah, some people talk about in this crazy way, but,
but I think as long as we are able to explain what AI is and also explain what opportunities
it creates over time.
And to me, it's about getting this like relationship between humanity and AI, right?
Like how do we make sure that this is something
that enables us as humans to be more human
and us as humans to do more and experience more
and be better and all these things
versus something that kind of is scary
or will take over or anything like that.
I think that's really important.
What's a place like, so if I go to chat GBT,
is that scale AI, is that the same thing or it's different?
That's it, so we're actually kind of under the hood
powering all the different models and AIs.
So-
Are all the different AI systems under the hood?
Yeah, so we help power chat GBT and open AI.
We help power mostly from the data perspective.
So we help.
And do we know if the answer came from your company
or other companies?
If we ask it a question, like how do we?
There's probably no way to like literally tell,
but yeah, we help power, you know, OpenAI
and we help power Google's AI systems
and Meta's AI systems and help power
all the major AI systems.
How can a regular person just at their home,
say there's a guy who's been listening to this today
and wants to go home today,
and he just wants to learn a little bit of how AI works,
he could just go on the chat GPT
and ask it a couple questions?
Yeah, you could ask chat GPT how AI works.
You could ask it what's the history of my town?
Can you research my last name,
maybe see where it came from?
You know, can you research my last name maybe and see where it came from?
What are, like, maybe what are some innovations
that could happen in the next few years?
There's different little things you can ask it.
That's how you can start to have a relationship
with asking and learning about using.
And you're seeing what it's good at,
what it's not good at.
Like right now, AI is still really bad at a lot of things,
like most things.
This is why I think when people understand it
and really get a feel for it, it stops being as scary.
Because I think we think about it as like,
we think about it as like the AI from the movies
that are sort of like, you know, all powerful and whatnot.
But-
Yeah, you think of it as a robot that's gonna show up
and just start driving your truck around or something.
And you're like, well like what the fuck do I do
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, he's wearing my truck, you know, I can't even get in my house now
Like I think that's the there is this boogeyman fear. Yeah. Yeah, but that's not the truth. It's not the truth and like
Yeah, that's not the truth. And and it's to me
It's like we have we kind of the choice to make sure that also doesn't become the truth, right?
Like we definitely, we in the, like people building AI,
but just in general, everybody in the world has like,
we should all make sure to use it as something that,
like an assistant, as something that like helps us
versus think about it in like a scary way.
Well, getting to learn and learn how to use it,
small ways, whatever, is certainly a way
that you're gonna start to realize what it is.
And it's easy to just sit there and say it's horrible
and without trying to use it to learn about it.
Yeah, sometimes I won't learn about something
just so I can continue to say it's a boogeyman,
because it kind of gives me an excuse
if I choose not to learn about it in my own life.
ChatGBT has become like a proprietary name,
like Band-Aids or Ping Pong.
Is that okay that it's like that?
Yeah, I think that's totally fine.
I mean, I think basically there will probably be
more AIs over time that people get used to and use.
Like anything, there will always be like a, in America, there will always be a bunch of options for
consumers and much options for people to use. And they'll be good at different things, right?
So I think like right now we're just in the very early innings of AI.
But over time we're going to have, you know, just like how
for anything, like for, for clothes or for, you know, energy drinks or for whatever, like different people have different tastes because there's going to be different things that different AIs are good at and other things that other AIs are bad at.
Is AI right now smarter than humanity?
No.
AI right now smarter than humanity?
No.
Yeah, so I think what AI is good at because it's ingested all of the facts, right?
Like it's ingested this like the body of water
is really, really big and it's ingested
so many different facts and information
from all of humanity.
It definitely like knows more.
Or like, you know, just like how Google knows a lot more
than any person does.
So it definitely knows a lot more,
but it's not like, you know, there's a very, very,
there's tons of things that humans can do
that AI is just like fundamentally incapable of doing.
So, so it's not like a,
I don't think you can even like measure one versus the other.
They're just sort of like very different
kinds of intelligence.
Could AI just create a better AI at a certain point?
Like could it just be like,
hey, AI create a better AI and it could do that?
Yeah, this is a good question.
Actually, this is another really hot topic
in the AI industry is can you get AIs
to start doing some of the engineering
and some of the improvement on its own?
And can it-
That's scary.
Cause then it's making kind of choices then.
It's becoming the lifeguard.
It's becoming the water and the coast guard.
Yeah.
So this is something, I mean, my personal thought is,
I think this is something we should kind of watch a little bit,
and we should make sure that humans always are,
have the sort of like steering wheel and the sort of control over,
because like you're saying, you know, it's kind of a slippery slope
before that gets kind of, you know, a little weird.
But I think that like we can maintain that.
We can make sure that we don't let the AI
just sort of keep iterating and improving on its own.
Yeah, and in the end, you can always shut off
your computer and phone and go for a walk, huh?
Yes, yeah, totally.
It's not like it's gonna come out and just slurp you off
or something if you're trying to be straight or whatever.
And it's a man, I don't even know, is AI male or female?
I don't think it has a gender.
Wow.
Wonder if it'll decide one day.
It'll be like, hey, I'm Frank, you know?
Well, there are companies that try to program the AI
to adopt various personas.
Oh yeah, I got the Indian GPS guy, turn right.
Like on meta, like Instagram or whatever, you can get an AI that has Aquafina's voice. Oh, that's cool.
Yeah. And it's funny. You know, the Aquafina AI is funny.
You're a self-made billionaire, which is pretty fascinating. Congratulations,
I think, you know, to have... I think that money is energy kind of,
and it kind of flows to certain places and stuff.
And congratulations, that's gotta be fascinating.
Was that scary when that kind of happened?
That you just made some money?
Was that kind of a scary thing?
Did you guys grow up really well?
Like, what was that like?
No, no, no, I grew up, I think, like solidly middle class.
Like we weren't, we, you know,
we weren't, we weren't like,
You weren't trapping or anything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, you know, solidly middle class. And I think like, I mean, one
of the, one of the, one of the crazy things about tech and the tech industry is that,
you know, we've been, we've been just sort of like building this thing up over time.
But one of the things that, that happened is AI all of a sudden became like,
there was so much progress in AI and it became the biggest thing in the world.
Right. Like, I mean, um, all of a sudden, you know, anywhere I go,
I'm everybody is talking about AI.
It didn't used to be like that when I started the company.
AI was just kind of a niche topic.
And now it's like, anywhere you go,
I'll just be walking around and I hear random conversations
about chat GPT and AI and robots and all this stuff.
And so it's kind of been crazy to experience that and be
a part of that wave and kind of like,
you know, I started working on this company
almost nine years ago.
So it was like, when I started working on it,
it was kind of this obscure thing.
And you know, I always knew that it was gonna become bigger,
but I could have never predicted
what was gonna happen to AI.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's fascinating.
It's almost like you were just standing on like,
the bingo number they got called kind of by time.
Yeah, and it's surreal.
It's surreal when that happens.
Oh, I can only imagine that.
Are your parents pretty proud of you?
What's that like?
Yeah, so at first they were like,
at first I dropped out of college, right?
Oh yeah, that's true, yeah.
And in Asian culture, that's not a thing you do, right?
Not good, yeah. Yeah, that is like yeah, that's true. Yeah. And in Asian culture, that's like not a thing you do, right? Not good, yeah.
Yeah, that is like the opposite of being Asian.
Well, my parents both have PhDs.
My two brothers, I have two older brothers, they both have PhDs.
Like everybody in my family has, they've gone through all of schooling.
Yeah, they're like, Alex is not doing good.
I don't know, that might have been Spanish.
But they're like, yeah, Alex is not doing good. Yeah.'ve been Spanish. But they're like, yeah, Alex is not doing good.
Yeah, so they were pretty worried at first.
And I kind of, I told them a little bit of a white lie
that I was like, oh no, I'm just going,
I'm gonna go back, you know?
I'm gonna get this tech thing out of my system
and then I'll go back and I'll finish school.
Obviously that hasn't happened yet.
But yeah, they were worried at first. Now they're super proud. Yeah, they're super duper proud.
And I owe everything to my parents, you know. They're awesome. And like, seriously,
my parents are super brainy. They're both physicists. They would like teach me about
physics growing up and teach me about math. And's what let me be so good at the competitions, you know?
That's cool.
Yeah, I don't even, I think, do, are your parents, are your grandparents from China
or no?
My grandparents are from China, yeah.
Okay.
Did your, does your family have a lot of Chinese culture?
So this is kind of interesting.
This is true for a lot of Chinese Americans,
is that there's kind of like, there's Chinese culture,
and then that's kind of almost like,
it's very different from the Chinese Communist Party
and the current government.
Because basically one way to think about China is,
I mean, China has been, is a culture and a civilization
that's been around for like thousands and thousands of years, right?
So it's, there's a very long-standing culture.
Oh, yeah.
But that's very different from the current communist party and the current communist regime.
Oh, for sure. I think most people probably think of, I mean, I don't know. It's funny I never thought about that.
I definitely think about it as different. I definitely don't think if I see a Chinese person,
I don't think, oh, that's a communist person.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, that would be, yeah, that's crazy.
I think that's crazy if some people thought that.
I just, yeah, I think somebody has a crazy long history,
like damn.
And then maybe almost, do you feel
like there's some people in certain parts of China
are almost like a captured people then?
Do you think that's a?
Yeah, I mean, the Uyghurs that we're talking about,
I mean that's just like horrible what's happening to them.
I didn't even know about that man,
thanks for putting me up on that Uyghur game.
Yeah, yeah, no it's, I mean some of this stuff like,
I mean we don't really, like first of all,
the world is a huge place and there's like all sorts of,
both great and bad things happening all over the place.
Yeah.
But yeah, no, I think that like,
I think a big part of this is like,
we wanna make sure we have governments
that believe in democracy, believe in liberty,
these kinds of things.
Yeah.
With being somebody that's able to be smart
and conceptualize stuff, do you start to get,
and do you have any insight,
this might be the last question I have for you, do you have any insight, this might be the last question I have for you,
do you have any insight on the afterlife or what happens?
I never really thought about it,
talking to a real math guy about that.
Yeah, I think-
Like what's the total, what's the sum zero game or whatever?
What's the-
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I guess the way I've always thought about it, because, partially because both
my parents were physicists, was I kind of always feel like people live on with their
ideas and they're kind of like, what are the things that, the things they put out into
the world, that's kind of how you live on.
Because like in math, like everything you learn about
is like a theorem named after a different person
or a sort of idea named after some,
you know, the first mathematician
or the first scientist or whatever to figure that out.
Like Einstein lives on because-
Bagels.
That was a shitty joke, but thank you.
Oh yeah, because the, yeah, all E equals MC squared, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. So, so-
Like I know what that kind of stuff is, Jesus, sorry, but I started pretending.
No, no, exactly. E equals M squared, that's Einstein. And so, so I think I always feel like
people, yeah, you live on by your ideas and, and kind of what you put out into the world.
And that's kind of always how I've thought about it.
So you don't get some deeper thought about like,
like since your brain is able to be,
cause you have probably a unique brain, right?
And more, I mean, you know,
and everybody has a unique brain,
but I've just never asked somebody with your,
I've never asked your brain this question.
Yeah, do you get some further insight about like
what you think happens when you die, you know?
Well, I think that one of the things that gets talked about
a lot in Silicon Valley, where I live especially,
is like the simulation, whether it's all simulation
and whether like, do you watch Rick and Morty?
I don't watch it, but I'll start.
There's some episodes where it gets into this.
And I think it covers it in a pretty good way,
but like, you know, what if all of humanity
is just like almost like an experiment or a video game
that some other civilization is running?
Yeah.
That's kind of the one that that fucks with
particularly like people's mind and tech a lot, because we're like every day, all day, every day, we're out there trying to make computers and make simulations and make things that are that are like more and more sophisticated and advanced and capable.
and capable. And so kind of the mind fuck is like, Oh, what if everything we know is, is just kind of the, you know, a simulation from some other civilization. Or if we advanced it enough that
we're able to make this happen and seem real. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, you know,
I think, I think one of the things that, that, um, like with AI and with a bunch of other things,
like in, well, even just in just in the past 30, 40 years,
video games have gotten so much more realistic, right?
Crazy realistic.
Yeah.
So we've seen that happen, like in 100 years,
like would we be able to simulate something
that feels pretty realistic?
I mean, probably.
Right, could we be avatars?
Yeah.
For some other thing. Yeah, exactly. Damn, probably. Right, could we be avatars? Yeah. For some other thing.
Yeah, exactly.
Damn, dude.
I'll say this, my avatar is a pervert, brother.
Um, have you met any guys like Jinsun Hong?
Is that his name?
Yeah, yeah.
You have?
Yeah, totally.
Wow, what is it like when you meet some of these guys?
Have you met Elon yet?
Met Elon, yeah.
Met Elon a few years ago, yeah.
Wow.
Got to know him. He's the fucking, he's Elon, yeah. Met Elon a few years ago, yeah.
Wow.
Got to know him.
He's the fucking, he's the, he's turning.
Jensen's the goat.
Yeah, Jensen.
He is?
He is, yeah.
He always wears this leather, you see that leather jacket?
Yeah.
He, we hosted this dinner.
In Huang, is that a Chinese name, Huang?
Huang, yeah, he's Taiwanese, I think.
Yeah.
Or Taiwanese American.
But he, he in 2018, so when we were like a baby company, we threw this dinner in Silicon Valley
and we just kind of, I kind of YOLO invited him.
This was years and years ago.
And I didn't expect it, but he said yes.
And he came to our dinner.
And he came, he came, it was like at this restaurant
in Silicon Valley, and he came and just told
the craziest stories.
He like went to, he went to boarding school.
I think he's probably told this story,
but like he went to boarding school.
And his parents, when they came to America they they wanted to send him to boarding school, but they didn't
And so they just send him to like the first boarding school that they they like found on Google or something
They were like found it wasn't even Google at the time so that that they like heard about and that boarding school happened to be
Kind of like a rehab boarding school. So it was like
He was like this so fucking it's a halfway house.
He's just in there.
He's there learning with people who are detoxing.
Yeah, so he told me the story about,
he told the story about how he was like,
he was just like this kid at this boarding school
that where like, everybody else had these,
like all these crazy backgrounds
and he like, he got by and made his way through that school
by like, by like doing everyone's math homework
and like, you know, kind of like wheeling and dealing
that way.
Oh yeah.
And you could see that he learned how to like,
wheel and deal and sell and all this stuff from,
all the way from way back then.
Cause he was, I mean, his story is pretty crazy.
Really?
We have to research him a little bit.
Maybe we would get to talk with him one day.
Yeah. Jensen's awesome.
Yo, all these people in tech, they're like,
I mean, they're all real people,
but they all have the craziest backgrounds.
Yeah.
Yeah, man, it's just so funny.
Whenever I met you, I just didn't,
I figured that since you were with Sam Altman, that you were probably a tech guy, you know? And, um, but yeah, I didn't know.
Uh, I think maybe somebody said he's in the AI verse, you know? But you just seem like such a totally normal, like I would not have thought that, um, you were just, I don't know. I guess some of you think like somebody's gonna be, they're gonna be like super quiet or, you know,
not have a lot of different thoughts, but yeah,
it was cool, man.
We had a good time.
I'm glad we got to link up.
Yeah, totally.
That was cool, bro.
You're probably like my,
you might even be my first Chinese friend.
I think second, probably Bobby Lee.
Who's denying it, but he'll come around.
Alexander Wang, man. Thank you so much, dude.
I bet your whole family's super proud of you.
Yeah, it's exciting, man.
Thank you for coming and spending time with us and just helping us learn and think.
No, thank you. This was awesome.
And I think, like, I mean, we were talking about this before,
but I want to make sure that, like, people all around the world,
especially Americans, aren't scared
of AI because it's going to be really cool and it's going to be amazing.
But we need to remove the boogeyman component.
And thanks for helping me do that.
Yeah, no, man.
I think I definitely feel differently about it.
I feel like it's a tool that I can use, right?
And even I don't know how to use it.
So I'm trying to figure out, you know, one more question.
How do you keep it from becoming like a,
like a advertisement trap house?
Like the internet's become like the internet's just pop-ups
and ads and fucking best buy trying to like beat you
over the head on some shit.
Like how do you stop that?
How do you keep that out of like you guys' waters?
Or do you have to go there at some point to make money?
Yeah, first I'm hoping that that that we have like the industry as a
whole avoids advertising as much as possible because because
it's kind of it's very different.
Like it is a tool that that people can use and people can use to start
businesses or make movies or make all these different ideas happen.
And I would much rather it be a tool that doesn't get sort of,
that doesn't become, yeah, like an advertising thing.
Like I wanted to make sure it's a tool
that helps people first and foremost.
So that's, I think there's kind of like a choice here
and we as an AI industry just gotta,
I think make some of the right choices.
Yeah, I think there would be value in staying
as pure as you could if you could find a way to,
if there's other money to be made on the side,
it almost seems sometimes like it could be a trap.
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's like,
I wanna make sure that people don't feel like
they're being used by the AIs.
I think that'd be really bad if we ended up there.
So we, you know, and I don't think we need to make it
like that at all.
Like I think we can make sure the AI is helping you do
things is super helpful, is like a thought partner,
is like an assistant.
Like those are things that I think we want to make sure
AI stays.
Gang, baby.
Wang Gang, Alexander Wang, man.
Thanks so much, bro.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, it was awesome, man.
Danny Kane, shout out to Danny, who came up.
And Danny lives in Franklin, right?
We gotta get to spend some time with him.
Yeah, lives in Franklin.
Whenever you're out there.
And shout out to Alex Brusowitz, who we met through.
Yeah, and who else on your team's here, man, today?
We have Joe Osborne, yeah, and and
we have Danny's whole crew so ariane and
Clayton yeah nice. Let's get a group picture. We'll put it up at the end. Thank you guys And I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone
Oh, 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