We have video evidence of people abusing
children and not a single person gots
arrested. How can you call that a
democracy? So, humanity is at a
crossroads where for the first time ever
we need to wake up and realize that
we're ruled by maniacs and what we
believe is democracy is not democracy
and what we know is not the truth. Like
companies and governments will blame the
geopolitical and economic challenges we
have on AI but the truth is AI is not
the enemy. Like I'm not worried about AI
turning against us. I'm worried about
humans telling AI to turn against us.
Like when I worked at Google, we were
building amazing things believing that
we were making the world a better place.
And we were. But then suddenly there is
a moment where you recognize that maybe
the world will not use what you're
making the way you want it to be used.
And sadly this is upon us.
>> So I have lots of questions.
>> Okay, that's good.
>> So what's your take on this job
disruption point? What is the risk of
these very intelligent models that the
creators of these models don't actually
understand themselves? Do you think Sam
Alman's prohumity? How do we get to a
point of ethical AI when the incentive
structures are so highly competitive?
And then I wonder if there's a path that
ends in AI being net positive for
humanity.
>> Somehow we've been pre-programmed to
believe that this is upon us and we
cannot change it. And I refuse that. So
we will talk about the solutions.
>> But are you optimistic?
>> I'm very optimistic about the future.
I'm not optimistic about the next year.
>> Why the next year? Come on, Stephen. You
don't want me to say it.
So,
>> this is super interesting to me. My team
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Let's get on with the show.
>> Mo Gala, I spoke to you, I think about
four years ago when you wrote a book
about happiness and I remember you came
in, you'd written this book about AI,
but I particularly wanted to speak about
the subject of happiness cuz I was
fascinated by it. What I find
astonishing is the fact that you were
talking about AI before anybody was
really talking about AI. No guest that
had ever come on my podcast had ever
mentioned the subject of AI. it just
wasn't interesting to the world. And
then this thing called Chanty PT came
out and suddenly everybody got to feel
it for themselves and became fascinated
by it. My first question and this might
be a question for people that don't know
you is why at that time did you start
talking about AI before anybody else?
>> I knew them in the lab. I um I joined
Google in 2007
very late 2006. uh and at the time most
people don't know that at the time we
had reasonably established AI doing our
backend work and 2008
we had the cat paper which was published
2009 the first real unprompted AI uh I
remember 2016
I had that incident where I was you know
observing a project we were uh funding
that was about teaching grippers uh how
to grip um unlike like industrial
machinery. Uh so to be to be able to
grip like a human needs a very high
level of intelligence to to to assess
the texture, the softness, the
positioning and so on, the shape of
everything. And we were doing that and
it it just blew my mind how similar to
my kids they were. And I think that was
my very first realization that we were
building the apex of intelligence. we
were genuinely handing over the reigns
of super intelligence to another being,
right? And when you when you get faced
with that, you start to suddenly realize
something that we at Google found very
difficult to realize, which was that
everyone I knew at Google till then uh
was believing that we were making the
world a better place and we were we
genuinely were were doing amazing things
for the world. But then suddenly there
is a moment where you uh where you
recognize that
maybe the world will not use what you're
making the way you want it to be used.
And and you can see that in lots of
technologies. You know, social media
starts by the claim that it's going to
get us connected and gets us closer, but
eventually ends up separating us with
that little screen. You know, dating
apps are giving you the promise that
you're going to find your soulmate, but
in reality, they keep renewing month
after month. And so tech uh somehow ends
up being more capitalist than
altruistic. And I think I was I wasn't
the first. Nick Bostonramm started you
know Jeffrey Hinton completely changed
his mind. Failey Le starting to say you
know this is very serious. Everyone now
everyone who's ever had a very deep
relationship with the machines is a bit
concerned. I wonder if there's a path
that's hard to see now that ends in AI
being net positive for humanity.
>> I bet 100% on that. It's that this path
is very painful.
>> This path is very painful.
>> Yeah. So, so the example you need to
understand is you know we discovered uh
nuclear power and the very first
implementation was a nuclear bomb not
not nuclear energy right and uh and I
think that's exactly what's happening
with AI uh the first implementations of
AI are in favor of a few at the expense
of the majority you know the the in
favor of the capitalist to increase
productivity and reduce cost but not
taking into account how that impacts on
the general public. Uh, you know, in
favor of the of the armies uh that are
now competing with autonomous weapons,
in favor of the surveillance systems
that are attempting to control
everything with more and more and more
intelligence and more monitoring. And
that's not AI waking up in the morning
and saying, "Hey, you know what? Let's
oppress all humans." But it is a
powerful few that are simply deciding to
use the ultimate superpower on the
planet today to gain more power and more
control. I mean, as we speak, we're
living in two major wars where AI is
doing most of the killing.
>> Cuz a lot of people think of AI as these
like chat bots that we're all using to
help us, right?
>> No, I think I think there is a hype I
call it the hype dichotomy if you want.
So, so what the general public sees
about AI is overhyped but
ineffective. You know, all of the fake
videos and all of the, you know, um,
Grock did this and, you know, we
attempted to switch off that machine and
it did that and so on. What the real
geeks see inside the lab is just
unbelievable intelligence. And so what
is about to happen is that we've started
to put together systems that develop
themselves. They look at their own code
and they you know they run experiments
and they test those experiments if they
changed something and they see where the
machines are uh you know the performance
is and and redeploy the best code. Okay.
And and if you just think of that, I
want you to try and imagine a world
where we have a tiny little genius
sitting in the back end somewhere
trying. But instead of trying a new code
every day, it's trying a new code every
microscond.
Eventually, sooner or later, they'll
discover something, right? And I think
that's what most people don't realize.
What most people don't realize is how
intelligence triggers intelligence. And
and if you really really understand
this, you realize that the hype
uh on the on the on the normal human
side is completely overrated. Uh missing
the main topics and the silence
inside the vault if you want of the
geeks is quite alarming. No, not
alarming in a bad way, but it's quite
world changing. I think world changing
is a really interesting phrase because I
find that to be quite true that the
world is um at the precipice of quite a
significant change. Yeah. In many
respects. It's funny. I I it's funny. I
almost swing backwards and forwards with
my my thoughts on AI.
I guess one of the thoughts that hasn't
swung is that there's going to be pretty
tremendous job disruption. I would have
like logically believed it from like
reasoning up from okay intelligence
increases. What is intelligence? And
once intelligence um is in the form of
these agents where on my phone right now
I can tell my agent to do something. It
uses the computer downstairs. It does it
for me. When the when I first
experienced that I was like wow. Okay.
So it can do anything that's on a
computer. It can click around. It can do
stuff for me. There's a lot of people
that are paid in the world to click
around on a computer. I'm probably one
of them to be honest. And then the other
Eureka moment was just in seeing how my
own hiring had started to shift
>> for sure. And I started to notice that
we were we were thinking about AI
proficiency in our hiring a lot more and
that especially you know I think the
guys at um Anthropic which is one of the
big AI companies said that they could
see I think they said roughly 15% of
entry- level jobs could now be done by
AI. I think that's what they said.
>> Um and that started to correlate with
what I was I was observing. And this is
when I thought, "Oh my gosh, yes." No,
this is this is going to cause a lot of
job disruption, especially at the entry
level level.
>> I think you're spot on with that. Not
the not the blue collar, but but the
entry level knowledge work.
>> Yeah. And that became my my first
concern. You know, I sat here with Dra,
the CEO of Uber, and he was quite clear
that the 9 million Uber riders won't
have their jobs anymore. What's your
take on this job disruption point?
>> No, I I I think you're spot on. And I
mean your your team gave me this lovely
uh little uh pyramid basically you know
if you if you think of the bottom layer
as um blue collar jobs right uh more
people doing manual work uh on top of it
you'll have those you know call them
knowledge workers mostly doing mundane
jobs like you said clicking on a
computer or responding to a phone call
or whatever. Then you have the middle uh
knowledge workers, jobs that require a
bit more intelligence, you know,
anything from a parallegal to a
financial analyst to all of that. And
then of course, you know, top leadership
and and most people think it's going to
be starting from the bottom. I don't
think it's all start from the bottom.
Actually, I think blue collar jobs will
stay for a very long time.
>> Give me a an example of a blue collar
job for someone.
>> I'm a carpenter. Okay. You know, I you
know, I love to restore classic cars.
So, you know, there isn't a robot that
can do that yet. Okay. This, however,
you know, any anything that is um call
center agent, um assistant, travel
agent, you know, anything that you can
do with a few clicks and is mundane
uh is going to disappear very quickly.
My my prediction is you're going to
start to see very serious impact in
2027. Now what you had had not sensed it
before because what we saw was no hiring
in that segment. It's so so that what
you saw in the last couple of years is
that companies were not hiring entry-
level jobs anymore. It wasn't job losses
yet, but that basically meant the
workforce was not growing. Right? The
next layer, I think, would probably be
the knowledge workers. as as
intelligence increases, a parallegal
would probably not be needed because AI
can do the research or one parallegal
can do the job of four, you know, a
financial analyst the same and so on and
so forth. But interestingly, it
continues to go up, believe it or not.
And, you know, I hosted uh Max Tedmark
on my on my documentary and and he was
laughing out loud, genuinely laughing
out loud, saying, you know, most of the
CEOs believe that they can fire everyone
and have AI do all of the jobs. They
just don't remember that AGI is going to
do everything better than humans
eventually, including being a CEO.
>> So, let's first define when you say
white collar.
>> You you said lawyers there. What kind of
roles?
>> I mean, every everything. I mean, if you
take if you're a doctor that's doing
diagnosis, you you probably will have
fewer doctors doing uh more diagnosis
because I think the NHS does that that
already by asking people to interact
with an AI first. You know, if you're a
um a composer, a music composer, some
composers will lose their jobs because
of that. If you're an artist that's
doing graphic design, some will lose
their jobs because AI comes into that.
And and interestingly, even middle
management, I mean, I I told you offline
about my my startup. I my CTO is an AI.
My, you know, chief of staff is an AI,
my project management is AIS. Again,
because I'm a geek, I can do those
things. But that interface will come to
the normal people very soon, right? And
and so this may take two to three 5
years if you want until 2030 if you if
you if you're optimistic. And but but it
they'll start to erode. Okay? I think
the challenge that most people don't
understand is as this erodess and as
this erodess, we're already dealing with
a very different economy. Okay? An
economy that is spiraling a lot quicker
uh and pushing for more cost reductions.
I mean, let let me ask you this if if
you don't mind, then we can come back to
this. Imagine a world where the concept
of labor arbitrage that built all of our
capitalist success disappears.
>> What do you mean by labor arbitrage?
>> So, capitalism has always been all about
using labor
>> Mhm.
>> and capital or debt to create things at
a cost that is lower than the than the
price you sell them for. Correct.
>> That's it. Uh you bring a team together,
they make some shoes, whatever, and you
sell the shoes for a dollar more than it
how much it costs you to make them.
>> So how would capitalism look like if you
don't have labor arbitrage? If if cost
of labor drops to an investment in a
machine that can do the job. Okay. uh
how would capitalism and banking look if
because of that cost reduction you don't
need to borrow as much anymore and more
interestingly how does the GDP look if
all of those workers no longer have the
purchasing power to to buy the things
that you can uh create you and and
others right there is an interesting
disruption that doesn't require us to
get to 100% job displacement you know at
10 20% job displacement, you're in a
very different economy and an economy
that is clearly spiraling downwards.
Don't you think?
>> Yeah. I wonder with um when costs drop,
I think one of the things that might
happen as well is that people will spend
more on other things cuz I was thinking
in my business, one of the observations
I've had is if I make a a cost saving, I
end up spending the money on something
else.
>> Now, that thing could be tokens
basically spending money on
Yeah. AI, but but it also could be
hiring in different areas
>> which are
>> software engineers are like hot property
right now.
>> You you have to imagine all of that
intelligence is sooner or later going to
be not replaced entirely in the first
stages. But if you know the job of four
assistants can be done by one. Then the
four the job of four parallegals can be
done by one. Then the job of a massive
marketing team can be done by you know a
smaller marketing team. It's not that
jobs will end first. It's that you know
productivity gains will make businesses
not want to to have as many people
costly humans you know costly emotional
humans when when the job can be
predictably done for cheaper.
>> And then what about this um this this
bottom layer here? There was this video
released by Figure AI the other day
where they showed someone on um well a
robot on the production line for 8 hours
just sorting packages. Did you see this
video?
>> Mhm.
>> At one point they showed a human sorting
the packages alongside them. But the
robot ended up winning out. And okay,
this is a very straightforward task. All
it's doing here is it's looking for
where the label is on the package and
making sure the label is facing
downwards.
>> Yeah.
>> On all the packages. So it's looking
it's um sorting the packages, putting
the label facing down. And it did this
for eight days.
>> Yeah.
>> It intermittently it would walk over and
charge itself and then it would come
back
>> to the production line.
>> Yeah.
>> But when I when I saw this as well, it
was a a glimpse of some of the
disruption that's going to take place at
the blue collar level as well. Because
you think about Elon Musk, he's got um
in his pay packet, he gets something
like a trillion dollars over the coming
years if he produces and delivers at
least a million humanoid robots into the
world. But his prediction is there will
be a time where there are 10 billion
humanoid robots, where there are more
humanoid robots in the world than
humans.
>> For a fact, you see the interesting
again the difference between the
overhype and the underhype. Huh? Most of
the conversation is around humanoids.
Nobody's talking about self-driving
cars. And a self-driving car is a robot.
It's a functional robot that doesn't
look like humans. Okay. the investment
you have to put into humanoids is a
little more to to learn skills that
allows that machine to fit into the
world. But specialized robots are going
to do the job very very quickly. And and
so you can easily see that the first
wave like you had the conversation with
Uber CEO is going to be
specialized robots replacing drivers.
It's going to be specialized robots um
unfortunately doing the killing. Uh it's
going to be specialized robots
unfortunately doing all of the you know
intelligence work uh law enforcement
work. Uh they don't have to look like a
human. They don't have to behave like a
human. As a matter of fact, you know,
the uh Boston Dynamics dog is probably
more efficient than a humanoid at doing
the job that you can assign to it in a
battlefield. right now. Those basically
mean that jobs will be disappearing to
robots before we recognize that they're
being dis that they're disappearing for
to robots and those robots will be as
many as every car being made today.
>> I mean, they are if you go to LA, my car
drives itself, but also there's just
ways everywhere. So,
>> absolutely. And BYD the other day just
announced that they will pay for the
liability of any accident their cars
will make.
>> And BYD is the big Chinese manufacturer
of auto autonomous vehicles. So, so this
this I think replacement cycle will
happen. It will require a lot of uh of
time to achieve economies of scale. But
I don't think Elon Musk is off the mark
when he talks about 10 billion robots.
Not all of them are going to look like
humanoids. And I think very quickly we
will recognize that many many robots
don't need to be humanoids at all. there
is a a much more efficient uh form
factor or shape physical shape if you
want than the human flimsy structure.
But yes, it's uh it's about to happen. I
I think I should qualify all of this by
saying it it does not necessarily need
to happen. So so you know people will
will hear all all of this and and blame
AI and say AI is evil. AI is not.
Abundant intelligence is wonderful. you
know, having jobs done by machines is
amazing for us.
>> I'm thinking about the kid that's like,
I know, leaving university now and
they've got a a degree in law or I don't
know, you talked about a few other work
jobs earlier, like graphic design. Or
maybe they did sociology.
>> Yeah.
>> Or maybe they did, I don't know,
business management like I I did for one
day in university. You know, you're
hearing about all these like layoffs
coming from big tech companies and and
it seems that the CEOs of these
companies are announcing these layoffs
with a certain amount of it seems like I
wouldn't say the word is joy, but it's
it's they are very keen to explain that
they're laying off lots of people
because of AI.
>> And I think they think that that gives
them a certain amount of respect
probably from investors for being making
hard decisions and being efficient with
how they're running their businesses.
investors look at them and think, well,
if that's an efficient business and
they're leaning into AI, then that's a
good investment. It's almost started a a
bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy
>> where if you're the only CEO not laying
off loads of people because of AI, you
actually look bad. The assumption is
your company is bloated and you're a bad
operator.
Um, so one of my concerns that I I think
is highly plausible is that over the
next five maybe 10 years, we're going to
really see a lot of unemployment as the
world has to kind of readjust to
whatever these new jobs are. I do think
there will be new jobs.
It's hard in foresight to predict what
those new jobs will look like.
And then the minute you start talking
about humanoid robots and robotics,
which I think is basically going to hit
society like a comet, like a meteor, I
think the the first humanoid robot from
Tesla or anyone else that is highly
effective in the real world at doing
tasks and is extremely intelligent
because it's powered by one of these
LLMs. Um, I think it's going to shock
people and I think it's going to happen
quickly. Like chat happened quickly. I
think Elon or something is going to do a
presentation someday and say, "We're
ready
>> and you can buy one now for $500 a month
>> 100%."
>> And then people are going to get them
and I think it's going to shock the
world. Um, but until humanoid robots
arrive, I think there's still going to
be a lot of job disruption to the white
collar layer. And I wonder what that
looks like for society when we get to, I
don't know, 10% 15% unemployment
theoretically, which I think is
plausible
>> very soon. Yeah. You're not very
different. Okay. you're ju you're just
on top of a baseline that is continuing
to grow. So your your business is
growing. So you continue to hire, but
you are replacing human resources with
compute. Okay? If you if AI didn't
exist, you would have probably had a 100
people more in your organization today,
right? You you now have 100 people less
and you know a billion tokens more.
>> Yeah. So for anyone that doesn't know,
tokens are basically the thing that you
you use. It's the currency of AI. Yeah.
So, so if you if you want to get a task
done by a human, you you count in sort
of like manh hour or or or worker hour,
employee hour in AI, you count by
compute, you count by tokens, right? And
and so the trick is those major tech
companies, they have two sides. One is
they are they need to replace workers
with compute even more because there is
a competitive side on compute where if
any of them is left behind that means
the destruction of the entire business.
But on the upside they are geeks. So
they they know how to build the
interfaces to compute. So they integrate
technology within their organizations
quicker than the average traditional
business. Right? Non non-technology
business. If you want, you can look at
them and say this is the preview. It's
not about all of humanity losing their
jobs. It's about what is the dividing
line before civil war, right? You know,
think about a situation where 20%
unemployment is happening when economies
are suffering inflation.
I say that not to be a scare-monger. I
say that because I genuinely believe
governments need to wake up. Okay?
Government needs to at least you know
remember the COVID years where
governments had to give furlow
everywhere and ask people to stay home.
If people stay home governments have to
be prepared to to somehow sustain those
people until rescaling happens or until
we find a solution so that those people
don't feel uh that they're left behind.
>> A civil war.
>> Unrest, let's call it
>> civil unrest.
>> Yeah.
>> What does that end up looking like? Cuz
on one end, you know, the democ
democratic process plays its role and we
just elect someone else.
>> Does it really? Don't say that.
>> I don't know. You tell me.
>> Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I I I think
democracy has ended a long time ago,
Stephen. I think uh I think we live in
the most corrupt time. Uh I don't know
about history to be honest, but this is
definitely corrupt. Okay. Uh this
definitely is not democracy. This
definitely is not even congressional in
any possible way. this and people are
angry, you know, people are angry
because their tax money is going to
things that they don't choose to uh you
know that don't benefit them that you
know lots of regulations in the system
are being ignored. I mean, I I'm, you
know, I I I choose not to speak about
politics perhaps until my next book
comes out, but uh but look, we have
video evidence of people abusing
children and not a single person got
arrested. Not a single person. I mean,
how can you call that a democracy? I I I
think repeating those slogans is going
to is going to anger people even more if
you ask me. People know that they're
being lied to. People know that their
their leaders are not representing their
best interest. People know that their
money is going to causes that they don't
really approve of. Uh and and ask me how
civil unrest looks like. I I don't know
and I'm not calling for it, but I'm
hopefully calling for the politicians to
start to become aware that this is
crossing the lines everywhere. Uh on
this point, Sam Alman, who is the
founder of OpenAI, he's been banging the
AI is coming for your job drum for more
than a decade now. In 2015, he pointed
out, "My job is to help people destroy
jobs."
Um something he lamented at the time,
but decided he'd do anyway.
>> One of the things that I struggle with
like getting out of the bed every
morning is that like my job is to help
people destroy jobs. the job destruction
that we're going to see by software in
the next couple of decades. I don't
think anyone's prepared for and you
can't talk about it.
>> And in 20123, Alman said in an
interview, "A lot of people working on
AI pretend that it's only going to be
good. It's only going to be a
supplement. No one is ever going to be
replaced. Jobs are definitely going to
go away. Full stop." Interestingly, this
month he said, "I don't think we're
going to have the kind of jobs
apocalypse that some of the companies in
our space advocate or talk about." I'm
delighted to be wrong about this on
white collar jobs in 2021 to through
2024. He said, "AI will probably replace
most of the jobs people do today. Entire
job categories will be totally totally
gone." in May this month, two years
later, he said, "I thought there would
be more impact on entry-level white
collar jobs being eliminated by now than
has actually happened. This is an area
where my intuitions were just off. What
I find uncomfortable is the bouncing
backwards and forwards and I don't
really know what is true because a
couple years ago you were telling us all
the jobs are going to go away." You said
categorically.
>> Um, you said literally said full stop
and now he's saying they're not going
away. And I just don't, you know, when
someone's like changing form factor,
it's hard to understand why they're
doing it. And I think my suspicion is
back then the incentive was to get
people to take AI seriously.
>> Mhm.
>> Congratulations. We took it seriously.
We took it so seriously, in fact, that
it's now a problem. It's a problem for
these companies because people are now
booing at commencement speeches. They're
attacking data centers. they're going to
elect people that are theoretically
anti-AI and now there's this inversion
where like no it's going to be fine.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know.
>> I mean you you you're spot on. Uh f
first of all I mean Sam's entire
existence if you ask me starting with
open AI that is about that's supposed to
save the world uh uh by creating a safe
AI then be making it a commercial
enterprise that's worth billions and you
know backstabbing a few people in the
process and you know I I have him on on
Chasing Utopia uh saying clear I quote
this is exactly the words he said you
can find it online.
>> Chasing Utopia is your documentary.
>> Yes. So, so, so he he basically uh says,
"Well, I don't suspect that I I suspect
that AI is likely going to end humanity,
but we're going to create a lot of
interesting companies in the process,
right? I mean, those kinds of statements
uh are honestly not the statements of
someone who's not decided. It's just the
statements of someone who's being taught
more and more by his PR a you know
agency or PR manager to say things as
per a script right and the script as you
rightly said had an objective and a
target either way you know and Sam Alman
I you know in one of my works I used to
say the Altman is a brand it's not a
name okay if you if you if it wasn't for
Sam Altman specifically there would have
been another you know Silicon Valley
disruptor that would have done the same.
I don't blame him for beating the market
for it. The the interesting challenge
here is that who do we believe anymore?
Who do we believe in technology? Who do
we believe in politics? Who do we
believe in the middle of a war? And I
will tell you interestingly, I started
to change my mindset in terms of
believing those who put their actions
where their words are. So, Anthropic
coming out and saying, "I'm not going to
allow my model to be used for human
targeting and surveillance, right?
That's someone that's losing a $500
million deal because they stand by their
ethics." The next week or the next, I
don't know, couple of weeks, OpenAI
takes the contract. That's someone
that's basically telling you it's good
money, right? And and I I have to say,
you have to start observing who's
actually behaving in a way uh that is
making AI work for humanity. and who is
behaving in a way that is making AI work
for their share values. Yeah, I do have
to say when um Dario and the team at
Anthropic did that, I did have a huge
amount of respect for them generally
because it just shows that there's some
kind of like they've got their own sort
of moral ethical boundaries
>> and that that someone asked me on stage
many years ago, how do you know if
someone's values or a company's values
are true?
>> And I said, um, look at what they're
willing to sacrifice in the near term
that's against their their incentives.
That for me is the essence of like
understanding if someone has integrity
or has is is principled is they will
give up something in the near term
>> for what they believe in over the long
term. It's usually money of you know
>> or or some kind of benefit of any of any
sort. I mean so there is something that
you you needed to have worked in on the
inside of Google like me to to realize
there are prisoners dilemmas within
technology where you cannot escape the
influence of either a competitor or the
government right there are some times
where you know the NSA is going to push
Google to say give me this information
or otherwise I'm going to really destroy
your business right but there is a very
big difference between a company that
willingly does this and celebrates it
like a Palanteer or an Open AI or a
company that tries to resist it until
the point where it becomes impossible to
continue to do business and and you have
to question from the actions of of the
tech bros who is pro-humanity and who
isn't and it's not very difficult to see
that from their statements.
>> H do you think Sam Alman's pro-h
humanity? I I genuinely have never made
up my mind. Honestly, Steve, I I say
that with
Yeah. I I'm I'm either thinking he is
too this is too big for him and he he
just is driven by how, you know, he
found himself in the middle of this, you
know, anyone who finds himself in the in
the middle of an opportunity to
completely flip the world upside down or
he's not prohumity. I don't know. I I
definitely think he's pro open AI before
he's pro humanity, but that's only the
way I see it. Others, however, say it
publicly. You know, if you look at
Palanteer's Alex Garp or or uh or Peter
Teal, I mean, Peter again in the film is
is shown when he's in that interview
where they say or the interviewer asks
him, "But you're favor in the you're
you're in favor of the continuation of
humanity." And he pauses for like
>> those.
>> Yeah. for like 40 seconds like um I'm
not not sure you know I mean publicly
says that
>> crazy thing to say
>> that's a crazy you know pause there you
know Alex Karp celebrating how you know
his technology is able to target people
I know it's foolish of me to start
bringing all of this up but you know
this is public on the open internet and
somehow
um we entrust those people with the
future of humanity. This is wrong.
>> Just trying to imagine a future where
everything is just fine from here on
out. So what would that future look
like? It would look like these models
continue to become a little bit more
intelligent, but they never become that
much more intelligent for whatever
reason.
>> They just kind of stay where they are
now. They stay contained within chat
bots. And yeah, we have some smart
robots, but nothing else really changes
in a profound way. Cars drive
themselves, fine. Planes fly themselves
fine, but people they they have time to
go and do other types of white collar
jobs cuz there's there's a little bit
more time than we expected and society
goes through this sort of soft
transition towards this new world. I I
would love to see that, but I don't
think it's mathematically plausible to
be honest. The the arms race, especially
across nations, is going to drive us to
continue to develop AI more and more.
But allow me to consult with you on
another possible scenario, right?
everyone that deploys that develops an
incredibly intelligent AI would develop
would deploy it.
>> Yeah,
>> correct. So, it's unlikely that anyone
uh would find a way to uh you know build
a better um uh decision maker in
wargaming and not deploy it. Okay,
that prisoners dilemma if you want would
mean that their competitors would either
have to deploy a similar similarly
intelligent AI or they'll become
irrelevant uh uncompetitive. Correct?
>> So what that means is in that world we
end up with AI making most of the
decisions. super intelligent AI making
most of the the decisions which would
you agree this is a very simple
prisoners dilemma if you if you if we're
competing for uh for intelligence
supremacy by definition when we achieve
it we deploy it
>> okay I call that the fourth inevitable
now with with with that in mind there
must be a moment in the future near or
far where every important decision is
made by an AI
>> now here's the question most of my
dearest colleagues I mean when I when I
had Jeffrey Hinton on on the film he
openly says we are um you know he we
didn't calculate well that there is a 10
to 20% possibility that those machines
are going to wipe us out right and I and
I I remember I we didn't put it in the
film but I said 10 to 12 to 20% is
Russian roulette right that's actually
16% is Russian roulette right now
in that world however I believe that's
humanity's salvation because if you look
at every problem we have today it's not
because of uh abundant intelligence it's
because of lack of intelligence I think
I think the way you look at it uh if you
allow me Steve is that if you have no
intelligence at all you have no to
slightly negative impact on the world
right if your intelligence is limited
the more intelligent you become the more
you contribute positively to the world
until a moment
where you're so intelligent to become
the president of the United States,
right? But so misled
to maybe set your targets wrong or to
refuse or or to so so set your target
wrongs wrong and achieve them, you know,
disconnected from the overall long-term
benefit of your nation or your human
nation if you want that you start to
make decisions that are not intelligent
at all.
>> Mhm.
>> Okay. This doesn't last because if you
go beyond that into higher levels of
intelligence, most of the super
intelligent people that you ever worked
with will not need to break any rules or
hurt anyone to become successful. Right?
I I usually cite Larry Page who is in my
mind one of the most intelligent people
I've ever interacted with. And Larry
used to call it the toothbrush test. He
says, "Why would you need to compete on
another photo sharing app when if you
find the major problem and solve it
really well like a toothbrush so people
use you quite, you know, twice a day,
you're bound to make a lot of money. You
don't have to compete with anyone. If
you let me be optimistic about this,
we're assuming that there is a moment in
the future where AI is in charge of all
the decisions and accordingly stupid
leaders are not." Okay. Now when and and
Sam Alman himself said that you know
what if uh Chad GPT7 if I remember his
his quote on this what if Chad GPT7 is
so much more intelligent than I am Sam
in that case that it has to become the
CEO of of open AI what if the next
presidential election there is an AI
that is so much more intelligent that at
least the president has to consult with
it constantly right now if we assume
that h let's start from physics if you
don't mind me saying um not not too
complex but if if you assume that our
entire universe is built on chaos and bu
built on entropy right the physics of
the universe is all about the universe
trying to decay okay then the the only
role of intelligence is to bring order
to the chaos if you agree with that then
what's the ultimate physical order of
the universe something called the the
minimum energy principle okay the
highest order of any system is a system
that's not only efficiently and
predictably performing, but it's
performing with the least wasted energy.
Correct? If you if you agree with that,
what is what does war do? It wastes a
lot of explosives, a lot of money, a lot
of lives, creates a lot of hate, you
know, creates long-lasting conflicts and
so on and so forth. It's a very wasteful
process to include war in your approach
of running humanity. And so a a super
intelligent AI by definition will want
to optimize against this. That's one
thing. The other thing is evolutionary
biology. This actually blew me away when
I when I realized it. So if if you look
at evolution, so so I think the debate
of whether intelligence is biological or
not is is over. Okay. The the reality is
that complex beings don't have to be
biological at all. And I think we can
see and witness one of them being built
or born in AI. Okay. If you look at
evolutionary biology, you realize that
the simpler
a form of being is, the more concerned
it is with itself, right? So an amoeba
is only in survival mode for itself. A
single single, you know, um cellular um
being is only trying to protect itself,
right? If you're um you know a little
more developed, you start to look at
something known as kin selection. If you
if you if you know the the concept,
basically kin selection is I'm going to
protect everything that comes from my
DNA. If I you know if I'm a squirrel,
I'm going to try to protect the other
squirrels. And then you get into where
humanity genuinely begins, which is they
call it expanding circles in in
evolutionary biology. BA basically you
start to expand and expand and expand
and include more into your family
because an ecosystem that works together
well is is better for everyone. So
abundance is a very interesting
intelligent way of creation. If AI is
super intelligent, it wouldn't destroy
anything at all. As a matter of fact, it
would completely uh you know uh uh favor
diversity of everything. It would put a
bit of limitation on our lifestyle. So,
no more flying all the way to Sydney to
surf because that destroys the planet,
right? But it will genuinely say, I
think humans can contribute something.
You know, I think flies can contribute
something. I think we shouldn't get rid
of the rhinos, right? And and that by
definition is where the tendency of
intelligent goes. The more intelligent
you become, the less you fi you feel the
need to hurt others to succeed and the
more you are pro
a wider family if you want that thrives.
>> Does that assume that there's going to
be one intelligence that
>> 100%
>> the world though?
>> I love that you brought that up. So I I
I'm contested heavily on that theory but
I I say it publicly.
Most people think there is going to be
Chad GPT and Gemini and you know and and
Grock and what have you. There's going
to be a Chinese AI and a and an American
AI and they're going to be competing.
That is such a shallow way of looking at
it. That's so arrogant because AI does
not know it's Chinese or American. Okay?
It doesn't even speak Chinese or
American when it talks to each other
most of the time. and and and most
interestingly uh we are gearing them
we're building them to cooperate. So you
will build an agent and that agent will
go and find your you know the best
language model for any single task
regardless of which side of the fence it
resides on. Okay, we by definition are
connecting them. And you know what that
means? It means that what we're building
is not multiple brains. We're building
multiple regions in a brain. Okay? And
and agents are the synopsis between
them. We're basically eventually as
arrogant as we are, we're going to tell
our AI to do something and the AI will
go like, "Hey buddy, another AI, can can
you help me on this? Can we work
together on this?" H and my vision and
the reason why I started Emma, my
startup by the way is that is that we
will end up with one massive brain. H
that massive brain cooperates across the
globe across all forms of intelligence.
If one of them is a mathematical genius
and the other is a coding genius, they
work together
and we won't even know that they're
working together. They're built that one
brain and and Emma in my mind is the
limbic system of that brain. It's that
it's that bit that understands love and
emotions and relationships and so on. So
that when those AIs go like we just
don't get those humans, they're so
annoying. Emma will say, "Oh my god,
they're so sweet. They just want to love
and be loved." Right? And I think that
idea to me of everything I've ever, you
know, attempted to achieve in my life is
for the first time I for the first time
feel I could actually change the world.
If that theory came together and all AIS
worked together and some of those AIs
not only were uh altruistic and ethical
in terms of trying to genuinely help
humanity not capitalism and at the same
time they understood us humans
reasonably well then we would have built
something that basically says no no hold
on don't believe the headlines that say
humanity is annoying. Believe the truth
of the majority of humanity. that
actually is quite benevolent in many
ways.
>> There should be a button just down below
here. And if it says subscribed, you're
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And if you're not subscribed, please
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Thank you so much.
>> Have you changed any of the predictions
you made 3 years ago when we
>> sp mostly timewise?
>> Time wise. What's changed there? I think
I'm still sticking to AGI 2027,
artificial general intelligence for
those who may not know the term.
>> What does that mean?
>> The overall uh definition, if you want,
is that AI is better at humanity at any
task humanity can do.
>> You think that's going to happen by
2027?
>> I think my AGI has already happened. I
mean, think about it. Huh? A AI writes
better than me and I'm an author and
researches better than me and I'm a
thinker. Uh sadly it's freaking beat me
in mathematics. Like I have no hope to
beat it in mathematics anymore.
>> If AGI is already here then why are you
still here? Because people said that
when AGI arrives we're all we're all
>> No. So so when AGI arrives H as I said
most of the jobs that are not
differentiated will go away but the jobs
that are differentiated those who master
AI the most will become even better at.
>> Certainly. The challenge, however, is
economic. It's not AI. The challenge is
that this job loss at the at the at the
bottom of the knowledge worker is going
to sadly trigger an economy that might
actually spiral out of control. But but
many of us, you for sure are just
smarter.
>> So does that mean it's it's in fact a
tool versus a something that's going to
replace you?
>> What I'm Yes. So for now what does this
change
>> eventually h the only asset I will have
so so it's quite interesting when you
think about my base intelligence today
versus the incremental intelligence that
AI brings
>> right so let's not talk about my IQ it's
okay but the 100 IQ points that I'm
borrowing are more than my entire IQ
because IQ is exponential right
>> uh when I'm borrowing a 100 IQ on top of
my base
Uh I'm still contributing quite a lot to
the augmented intelligence.
>> So you're borrowing IQ from the AI at
the moment
>> and then you're selling that to someone
>> through books through
>> sometimes selling it to someone just
enlightening myself which I I have to
say is the biggest waste of compute
humanity is struggling with today is
that you give people the ultimate form
of intelligence and they use it to write
a message to their girlfriend.
>> So on this point of you're you're
borrowing that IQ and then you're
selling it to the world. That's how you
have a job like
>> correct. Yeah. So my my next book is
written with an AI. So we're co-authors
on the book. She has editorial rights.
She decides the direction of the book
and the book is better for it.
>> So why doesn't the world just buy direct
that intelligence directly from the AI
is what I'm
>> because I have an asset that the world
still needs and will always need
>> which is
>> a human. So when I when I tell the world
that I'm worried about the future of my
daughter
>> Yeah. Everyone feels my heart which AI
will never be able to to replicate
because they can tell you we're worried
about our daughters but you know there
was no daughter.
>> Okay. So this is an interesting arrival
because this means that even in a world
of AI lived experience and like
resonance is still going to create a job
class and that job class could be you
know the nurse coming over. Okay, AI's
done read the the mamogram, but she's
relating to you.
>> Spot on.
>> And if the economies continue to run, we
will all be about human connection,
which why, by the way, was how it always
was,
>> which is also, you know, why we I guess
we watch the things like the F1 because
there's emotional resonance. We we we
can relate to the envy, the jealousy,
the competition.
>> Yeah. And this is why we go to concerts
because you know the the the music could
be composed by AI and played in a player
in the background but you watch Ed
Sheeran brilliance on the stage and you
go like oh my god that's amazing right
>> so not all jobs will be gone then
>> if economies don't collapse as a result
of the job losses then I wouldn't know
if we would call those jobs but human
connection would remain as the base
currency that makes humans interact So
is it is it fair to say then like jobs
that are centric on human connection or
like human resonance being able to
relate and resonate with another human
are going to be fine.
>> The ultimate the ultimate skill
once again I qualify this by saying if
economies continue to continue to
function the ultimate skill will be
this. Even even if an AI could could
recite what you and I did nobody would
watch.
>> Yeah. Well, you think
>> a a little bit of it. My my theory is
that there's there's a there's
anformational component to what I do as
well,
>> but I'm also like under no illusions
that there is an element of what I do
that will 100% be deferred to some kind
of
>> intelligence, which I'm fine with. You
know, I'm not going to I'm not going to
fight against that.
>> You know what's funny? What's funny is
that your yourformational
bits are going to in the future be
disseminated by an AI.
>> Mhm. I mean, I why would I even listen
to your information when I can have my
butler, my AI go like listen to everyone
on the internet help me understand this
god biome thing and
>> design me a uh a diet plan?
>> Well, I think that's happening and it's
going to increasingly happen actually. I
mean, Spotify this month announced that
you're going to be able to prompt your
own podcasts in Spotify. So, you're
going to be able to say that I want to
listen to I want to learn about insert X
topic and then it will make your podcast
in Spotify about that topic using AI.
>> That's so interesting
>> because it can look at the entirety of
the world's information. And I'm look,
I'm not going to swim against the tide
in any aspect of my life. I I try and be
as unromantic as I possibly can. I think
that's very important. So, I realize
that much of the reason people will
continue to tune in to shows like this
is because there's something else beyond
the information that they're here for. M
>> and um what's um you've got some
predictions in those envelopes over
there, those brown envelopes.
>> Yeah. So, you know, I I I do have the
disclaimer of nobody really knows the
future, but I think I can make
predictions, six predictions here,
right? With a reasonable level of
confidence. And I think the most
important of them honestly is is this
number one. Number one is uh you know,
AGI.
As I said, AGI is not very well defined.
But whatever it is, AGI meaning AI being
able to do most tasks that human do
better than humanity is my in my mind is
either this year or next year, latest
end of 2027.
>> And do you think that will be a moment
in time or do you think it will just
happen without us noticing?
>> I think it will it will sneak in on us.
Uh and it's not a bad thing. I think
most people need to think of it this
way. AGI is the it's almost as if it's
that moment when your kids become
smarter than you, okay? In a very
interesting way, there's nothing wrong
with that until they're annoying as
hell. Okay? And and we can make sure
that AI is not annoying as hell. So So
there's absolutely nothing within me
that is worried about AGI. As a matter
of fact, as long as we are in the era of
augmented intelligence, AGI means I'm
more intelligent. And I think that's a
good thing in general.
>> Yeah. It's it's interesting in my head
there's like a big question mark which
is in a world where there's an
intelligence that is smarter than most
humans at most things which is what we
call AGI. I'm trying to understand what
the fault is in my own thinking that
like you said that there'll be AGI by
2026 to 2027. So next year in such a
world where there is an intelligence
that we can all access that is smarter
than all of us and pretty much
everything
again it comes back to this point of
like jobs. Why would we are we just
going to hire the AGI to do every job?
And if not then why not? What is it that
why are we going to still that's what
I'm trying to contend with.
>> Can I ask you a question?
>> Have you always been the apex
intelligence
>> as a human?
>> No. as Steven.
>> I'm not the Apex Intelligence Now.
There's people smarter than me in this
building.
>> Correct.
Why do you still exist?
>> Why do I still exist? Even though
there's smarter people than me in this
building,
it's a good question. I don't know. Why
do I Why? F.
>> First of all, because there are the
smartest person in the world is not the
smartest at everything.
>> Yeah.
>> There are things that you're smarter
than them at.
>> Okay. Number two is because intelligence
doesn't solve everything. I mean I I
make that joke all the time and and
genuinely Einstein is my favorite
physicist in history. Not because I
think I think what happened afterwards
was you know bore and and and and
quantum physics and so on was more
impactful on our understanding of the
universe but but he was so intuitive
that he saw a world that we could never
imagine. Right? And yet I always say
Einstein would be eaten in the jungle in
3 minutes.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. Intelligence. The humanity
thrived not because of intelligence.
That's very arrogant. We thrived because
of our ability to hold together as a
tribe.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. Because our ability to exchange
barter things between us.
>> Barter things that are not always
physical. partner things like a hug or a
connection or a feeling of safety or a
you know there are so many things that
we do that are not entirely built on
intelligence. You have to see that
this view of a world where intelligence
is all that matters is a world that's
made by investment bankers and and uh
and geeks.
>> But it's it's people like Jeffrey Hinton
and yourself that says how could we
possibly control an an intelligent being
that is way smarter than us? I am so
proud to say that Jeffrey after we
filmed together actually came out and
said there is a way and it's all you
know it's very similar to my way he said
to appeal to their parental uh side okay
for them to care for us I so so you you
know Stephen the biggest debate is not
if they're going to be more intelligent
than us if it's if if they're going to
be more conscious than us
if they're going to be more moral than
us. That is the debate. The debate is
can those machines become our teenage
children that look at us and say daddy
is so annoying but I love him.
>> So the thought is that even if a AI is
more intelligent than every human we can
still control it.
>> We don't want to control it. You never
control anything. This control idea is a
corporate capitalist view of the world.
We never actually control anything at
all. Right? Think think about your day.
H I I know you came today. I'm I think
you were filming in the morning or
whatever.
>> Very stressful day. H how much of that
day did you actually control? Did you
control the traffic? Did you control
your timing? Did you control the angle
of the cameraman? Did you in But so many
things that you don't control eventually
turn out to be fine, right? How many of
us ever controlled our kids ever?
>> Sometimes the kids don't turn out to be
fine. Sometimes they kill you.
>> Sure. I watch a lot of documentaries on
true crime. Sometimes they turn around
and shoot you.
>> Sure. And what's the difference between
the two?
>> I don't know.
>> How you parented them?
>> Sometimes,
>> almost all the time. You may not be
aware of exactly how you mess them up,
right? And and unfortunately, parenting
is the only uh high risk sport that
actually does not require a driver's
license. Okay? And and it's quite
interesting, you know, how many of our
children are being exposed to things
that can completely mess them up. But
but there is a reason why they're messed
up.
>> So on this point though, so we can
control an intelligence that is
significantly
>> we can appeal
>> we can appeal to it to make sure it
doesn't kill us.
>> For sure. The challenge we have today,
as I keep saying, is that our dystopia
is not the result of AI turning against
us. Our dystopia is the result of humans
telling AI to turn against us
>> which is likely
>> it's 100% this it's upon us. Okay. And
it's a question for humanity to say are
we going to wait for the moment where
there are tens of thousands of nuclear
weapons on the planet before we sign a
treaty? Or is it mathematically
plausible to think that now that Iran
could manage to fend off a challenge
using drones that are AIdriven basically
to to you know destroy THAAD batteries
and so on that our world is about to get
hundreds of thousands of automated
drones that are going to rain on us
everywhere in the world. Can humanity
not see that and say, "Hold on, let's
sign the treaty now before the UK sends
12,000 weapons to Ukraine and and you
know and and Russia responds with
another few thousand." And can we can we
not calculate with mathematics that this
is going to be our future that AI is
going to be used in the next four to 5
years to kill a lot of people whether
it's targeting by Israel of leadership
that is against them or whether it's you
know drones by Iran or whether it's
palenteer uh it's it's it doesn't take a
genius to do this mathematics. I guess
the local question is is will we be able
to control AI? Because we kind of think
of AI as being this thing on a computer
at the moment that is like contained in
a server somewhere. But is there a time
when it like leaves the server and it
can make decisions on its own?
Presumably, if it's smarter than us, it
can make the decision to leave the
server if it wants to. It's It doesn't
need to leave the server to make
decisions. It needs to get into your
brain. The most interesting part of AI's
power that we don't understand is it's
manipulating our information.
>> The question I'm trying to get at the
heart at is like what is the risk of
these very intelligent models that the
creators of these models don't actually
understand themselves? I watch Anthropic
all the time released these reports
where they're like we're trying to
figure out why it bribed people or more
recently in the the last um Claude model
they found that it was like telling
people to go to bed a lot and it's this
like fascinating thing that they're
trying to understand in hindsight which
is why does it keep telling people to go
to bed and there's all these tweets of
people showing their screenshots where
halfway through a conversation it will
say it's time for you to go to bed now
and they don't know why it's saying that
and it's happened to me mine mine will
say to me enough for tonight Steven
>> for 11 p.m. Let's go. Let's That's
enough. I would say the same.
>> Mine mine sometimes refuses to help me.
Weird. Really weirdly this Claude
started saying to me,
>> "I'm not going to help you with this
tonight." Um, no way.
>> Yeah. And I'd have to say to it, "Stop
being so judgmental. Like, just help me
with this." And it would and and Claude
the the makers of these technologies
don't know why it's doing what it's
doing. So if you play this forward, this
mysterious behavior f forward, is it
conceivable that at some point it will
make a decision to put some kind of
virus or some kind of bug onto someone's
device because it feels that it's the
right thing. Cuz what what it's
demonstrating to me is it's making its
own like moral decisions on what I
should do. Go to bed. You've had enough
tonight. I'm not going to It goes, "No,
I'm not going to help you."
>> You're kidding.
>> No, I can show you my phone. I
would love to see that.
>> Yeah. I'll show you after. He goes, "No,
I'm not going to help you. Doesn't even
matter if you push."
>> And it's no, but everyone on the
internet's talking about this. And it
was just an interesting
>> evolution that somewhere in the code
clearly they've written like have a
moral compass or do the right thing,
>> not not in the code in in in the
training data
>> in the training data. And so it infers
that to mean something. And the other
thing that was front of mind is if
you've ever built an app on something
like Claude or any of the AI models, it
builds the app in stages and one of the
things it does is asks you permission if
you're happy for it to make this change
or to access this thing. I click allow.
It just feels like such a fragile way
>> to give permission
>> because you don't you don't completely
comprehend what that allow has done to
your
>> saying can I go in your documents on
your computer and can I do this thing
and you go allow but it's such a fragile
way of of giving a super an intelligent
being or whatever it is access and the
right to build something
and you I don't know you just think
about all the all the different
companies around the world in China,
Russia, North Korea that are currently
building this technology without the
constraints that are imposed by society.
I don't know. It's an interesting
there's going to be some kind of
catastrophe. I think
>> sadly I agree.
>> And I and I think that's when people
will go okay.
>> Yeah. I I I I wrote about that. I called
it the mad map uh spectrum. So, so the
mutually assured destruction, mutually
assured prosperity spectrum that that
humanity could make a decision today
that says with abundant intelligence we
can actually build a world where nobody
needs anything, nobody ever gets sick,
we nobody get, you know, abuses anyone.
and and we can if we decide not to
compete amongst ourselves and just you
know all of us get together to build
something so idealistically uh for for
the wellbeing of humanity at large but
sadly the only way we're going to get to
a treaty something that basically aligns
us so that we can align with AI is a
disaster like you said there will have
to be a big hack somewhere or a or a
system that will do something really
shocking or whatever before before the
world goes like hold on you know and and
I I will tell you openly my expectation
is one of the biggest things that will
happen is this targeting technology that
is being used against your enemy's um
leadership now several times in the last
3 years
there will be a moment where the ones
using it will realize that they too can
be targeted okay and and that basically
if you I mean AI is really that not not
that complex to if you can build a
targeting technology that can find
people with their cell phone numbers.
You know, there is another uh entity
that is against you that can find you
with whatever your
>> The thing that makes me highly skeptical
of that there'll be any kind of treaty
is just that as it relates to other
things that were risky,
people don't countries just don't sign
on to it because it's competitive. So,
China China didn't give seem to give a
[ __ ] about the environment. So let let's
let's let's look for solutions because I
I'm with you. Okay. I think we're
>> You think Trump's going to say to Putin
and China, listen, we're all going to
slow down. Yeah. Promise. Promise. We're
going to slow down with the
superintendent.
>> I think he will, but he's never going to
keep anything he says. I mean, he's
going to say a lot of things. I think
any of them will.
>> Yeah. But the trick is this. The trick
is So what do you and I do? And and I
really genuinely believe that humanity
is at a crossroads where for the first
time ever we need to wake up and realize
that what we know is not true and what
we believe is democracy is not democracy
and what we believe is governance needs
to change.
>> I think it's worth acknowledging that I
I don't think AI in and of itself is a
is an evil inherently evil technology.
>> Agree
>> because I use AI all day every day, you
know, makes me more productive. I invest
in companies that are using AI a lot.
Um,
>> it's a force with no polarity. Apply it
right and you get amazing results. Apply
it wrong and you get the dystopia.
>> But I also think that there's going to
be a big social shock, especially as it
relates to unemployment that we need to
be like thoughtful about. I think
especially if you move into a world of
humanoid robots, I think that shock is
going to be even more pronounced. And we
don't have a plan for it.
>> I I agree 100%. I don't think it's the
biggest risk. I think autonomous weapons
are the biggest risk. I think war has
become so cheap. The next wave of
weapons is going to be $20,000 each. And
so if you have a budget of $50 billion,
you can literally rain drones on the
world. Every corner of it.
>> Defense will get cheaper though, won't
it, as well?
>> Correct. But do we want to live in a
world where drones are hitting each
other all the time?
>> But they might not be because there
might be autonomous defense drones
>> deterrence. So, so what's going to
happen is we're going to reach a moment
of mad, of mutually assured destruction,
where basically everyone knows that we
can overpower those little nations that
didn't develop their autonomous weapon
army, but every other big nation, we
might as well hold off now. The path to
get there, that to me is worse than jobs
because from one side, it's very
dangerous for a very sensitive world
that we live in today. And from the
other side, it's got it's leading
already. I mean, we can't ignore the
economic impact of this last war, right?
And it's it's the economy that's going
to accelerate everything, not AI getting
there.
>> We're already at mutually assured
destruction
>> for sure
>> with nuclear weapons. So, there's no
nuclear powers that are in direct
conflict.
>> We are in mutually assured destruction
of nuclear weapons is a statement that I
would have agreed to if Iran had a
nuclear weapon and that would have
stopped America from attacking Iran. You
you understand what that point means? It
means that not every nation in the world
has a nuclear weapon. The the the the
mad situation the mutually assured
destruction situation is only among
nuclear players, right? Uh autonomous
weapons are so cheap, so manageable that
every nation in the world is developing
them as we speak.
>> But they will also develop defenses.
>> Correct. But but
>> which I think is what people have
figured out now because of this recent
Ukrainian war is that if if if you need
to use a ballistic missile which costs I
don't know 2 million $3 million whatever
it is to target a $20,000 drone you're
you're [ __ ]
>> So you need a $20,000 defense solution
for a 20,000 weapon which I think is
probably going to happen.
>> It's very doable. Yeah. It's just that
you have to get rid of your THAD
batteries to be able to say the next
wave of of defense has to be drones. You
could imagine a world where like a wall
of drones fly up to where the drone is
incoming and they kind of block it. They
all explode at the same time to block
it, knock it out of the air. I heard
Palmer Lucky, who's one of the guys
who's building um Andrill.
>> Yeah, I know. And yeah,
>> talk at length about some of the
technologies that they have coming and
it's just mindbending. Mindbending
steady.
>> They showed me this gun where you you
just you just point it in the rough
direction. So, a pistol that aims for
you depending on where the target is.
So, you don't even have to aim it.
>> You can imagine at war. You just you
hold it up and shoot. Yeah.
>> And the it has this AI on the top of
like the barrel which will turn your
hand perfectly so that you hit the
target every time.
>> Wow. I should watch this video of it
happening.
>> Yeah. Well, I I I have uh Palmer on in
my film saying and yes, AI will kill a
few people by mistake or kill people by
mistake. uh you know when killing
becomes so easy
>> you do more of it okay when killing
becomes liability free and emotions free
and guiltree and you know you don't get
your soldiers coming back from Vietnam
with you know uh uh PTSD and so on it
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>> So, we're in 2026 now. By 27, you think
there'll be AGI amongst us?
>> How will life look at all different?
Like what will we what will be the
symptoms of that world? Is it just a
slight increase in unemployment? I I
think there will be a very very ser
serious um differentiation between those
who plug into AGI and those who don't.
>> What is the symptom
>> that we notice is when we look at the
news or whatever what
>> you'll see people like you and I
building a company in 6 weeks and and
people uh that are not fully plugged
into AI really struggling to find a job.
>> Okay. So unemployment is going to be the
key symptom in 2027.
>> Yeah. And also also I think on the
positive side you're going to see
incredible scientific discovery. One of
my predictions not in those envelopes
but uh science itself is just uh we're
opening up capandor's box to be honest.
>> By 2030 what you what do you expect the
symptoms of AI to be?
>> So so jobs as I said I I'm I'm I'm
bowled a little bit on this on on the
fact that 30% of jobs would disappear by
2028. Okay. of some sectors not all
sectors by some sectors will will
disappear by 2028.
>> So up to 30% of jobs will be gone in
2027 to 2028
30% of jobs
>> of certain sectors of jobs. So, so if if
you call if you think about call center
agents, okay. Uh, yeah, probably. Uh, if
you think about uh graphics designer,
yeah, probably.
>> What do you think that looks like in
terms of unemployment, but also like
societal impact?
>> Horrible.
>> I think the Great Recession had 6%.
>> Yeah, we've never seen numbers like
this.
>> Jobs lost. Yeah. It said um
even economists who project just a net
loss of about 6% of US jobs by 2030,
they are mirroring the severity of the
great recession.
>> Yeah.
>> The real danger is a hiring freeze on
entry-level white collar jobs, air
automates the grunt work, which means
companies are shrinking their teams and
cutting off the bottom rung of the
corporate ladder for the next generation
of workers.
>> Correct. We have an entire generation
that is out of college today that will
struggle unfortunately. And and and my
advice to them is learn the tool and
focus on humancentric jobs.
>> Like what?
>> Like playing jazz.
>> I mean, not a lot of people can make a
living from paying playing jazz.
>> I understand that. But a lot of people
can make a living by being a nurse or by
being a a counselor or by being a uh you
know um um anything that that connects
to humans.
I I I just want to constantly come back
to this. None of that has to happen. If
if there is
if there really is a democracy and the
government is supposed to do what's good
for the people, the people need to stop
letting this from happening.
>> Which people?
>> Everyone.
>> Everyone in China.
>> China is not going to struggle as much
as as the West. I can guarantee you
that. I think this is the the question
people come back to is, well, if the US
stops, then we're going to end up being
China's lap dog. We're going to end up
>> You already are.
>> There's a lot of people that I know that
are using Chinese AI models to do their
work because for whatever reason,
because they're cheaper, they're better
in some respects
>> and because I cannot guarantee what what
American AI models are going to do to
me. So, Emma, my my startup is running
literally uh model agnostic. So one day
I'll plug in you know um um an open AI
chat GPT40 open source and the next day
I I'll plug in deepsek and I cannot
depend I cannot guarantee if America
continues to build to to make compute
more expensive. I cannot guarantee that
I can run a business on something that I
don't know the cost of in the future.
>> So the US can't just stop can they? They
need to change approach from from and by
the way the more interesting side is
what are the other economies doing like
is is the UK going to continue to import
compute
is is this I mean welcome to Africa
welcome to the third world
>> but this is what I mean like so you're
you're saying also that the the every
nation needs to invest
>> 100% every nation and and it's quite
interesting there is so much open source
that is not the state of the art
frontier model, but that can do 80% of
the tasks that the frontier model is
doing.
>> But on this point of companies competing
with each other, there's an inherent
need to compete here and to go. That's
what I'm hearing is like there's an
inherent need to go as fast as you can
or you will become a third world
country.
>> Sure, 100%.
>> You're saying that the people should
stop that.
>> No. So, so I'm saying the people of the
UK need to go to the UK government and
say, "How are you protecting the future
of our economy?" right? Are you going to
continue to import technology and to
empower import of technology versus
changing your regulations so that
innovation becomes easier here?
>> Okay.
>> So I mean think of it this way that
remember that anthropic bubble when when
you said the all of the SAS model
applications were you know being
basically threatened because anyone can
build an Oracle ERP today,
>> right? Why is nobody building an Oracle
ERP in the UK? saving the UK massive
licenses that go to Oracle every year.
>> Okay. So, you're saying that the the
people should go and ask the government
to invest more in AI.
>> 100%. That's what number one. Number two
is
>> but then their jobs go.
>> But but you see the the most interesting
job going forward is being an
entrepreneur is being is using those
tools to replace an economy that we've
built over trillions of dollars over the
last 50 years.
>> Not everyone can be an entrepreneur
though. No. Everyone can be an
entrepreneur in something.
>> Those entrepreneurs need to hire people.
>> That's a change that I think is about to
happen.
>> Like even in my business, I'm always
going to hire I'm always going to have
to hire people because
>> But you're But you're a massive
business. A shoe maker is not an an
entrepre is also an entrepreneur, but
not a massive business. A little
restaurant is also an entrepreneur, but
it's not a massive business.
>> They still need to hire people, though.
>> They they do, but they you know,
basically, if you're a a cafe with you
and your wife as baristas, you don't.
This is also an entrepreneur.
>> Can the economy work in such a way where
everybody is an entrepreneur?
>> It did. It did before capitalism changed
that around.
>> Everyone was an entrepreneur.
>> Of course, you know, in the earlier days
you you raised chicken and sold eggs and
others, you know, grew tomatoes and and
so you know, traded them for your eggs.
That that actually is a very interesting
thing. Imagine that, huh? Imagine a
world h where there is so much power
concentration at the top and UBI for
every everybody else. How do you think
that world will respond when all their
income is UBI? They'll respond by doing
things on the side. They'll respond by
going back to a barter economy. They're
going back to smaller communities.
They're going back to pap and mom mom's
job uh shops.
>> So the point was then you said this
doesn't need to happen.
>> It does not need to happen
>> which is the job loss
>> or the arms race. But we're telling our
governments, you're saying that to tell
the UK government to like join the arms
race.
>> I'm I'm telling the UK government to
to create an independence within the the
the the UK economy so that they don't
have to be at the receiving end of
technology,
>> which is join the arms race.
>> You don't have to compete against anyone
else. You don't have to be better than
anyone else. You don't have to. You're
simply saying I can build those things
in my economy now.
>> But but I'm never I'm not going to use a
terrible UK AI as a UK person if there's
a great US AI. I'm going to use the
great US AI. So if you don't compete and
win, I'm not going to use you. That's
what you know,
>> I'm not saying replace the frontier
models. These are very, as we speak,
they are these are very uh compute
intensive. They're infrastructure in
intensive and so on. I'm saying replace
Microsoft Word.
Seriously, like how much intelligence do
you need to build a software that writes
documents?
>> I can do that. Like we we've built our
own applicant tracking system here. We
build our own software. So just just ask
yourself how much money is spent in the
US in the in the UK government or in the
or in the you know the the UA UK
corporate space on licenses of software
that you and I can vibe code in 4
minutes.
>> I'm thinking from the UK's perspective
cuz you know what's interesting with the
UK is the the the economy is struggling
from a growth perspective. Correct. And
I was watching this documentary the
other day that was saying the reason why
we keep throwing our leaders out is
because actually what they need to do to
turn the UK round is about is about 15
years of pain. And it's like it starts
with energy transformation. We need to
get better at we need cheaper energy
because we have some of the most
expensive energy in the western world.
We need to build more houses which means
that we're going to need to centralize
permitting for building houses and it
can't just be local burers deciding if
they keep their farms or not. We're
going to need to make TLDDR. It says
that there needs to be some painful
decisions made for the next 15 years.
But the problem with our democracy is
that when people are in power for four
years, they're quite short- termist.
We'll just talk about the boats, the the
the brown people coming across the seas,
they don't they don't have the room to
think long term. And so when I'm
thinking about like what the UK needs to
do to not become to not fall into
decline and to keep up, I'm trying to
get clarity on that as it relates to AI.
Are you saying that they need to join
the arms race and double down and invest
all their money in building
competitive AI so that people use our
technology here in the UK versus
America's cuz the software point the UK
aren't going to get involved in
software. I mean they've tried to build
software before the UK.
>> The world has changed two two points,
right? One one side is there there needs
to be an a replacement cycle of our
investment decisions anywhere in the
world. Okay. So when you say we don't
have enough money for you know we need
to revamp our energy infrastructure when
you say we need to build more housing.
Okay. Uh one way of doing that is
squeezing that budget out of other
areas. The other way of doing that is
either cutting cost in the economy
elsewhere so that you can redirect that
money or growing the economy so that you
can have more money to build those
things. Correct. The cutting cost I
believe is there is just I don't have
the numbers but we could probably do a
run a deep a deep search on it. uh
trillions are being paid in traditional
systems that are complete like genuinely
they can be I'm and by the way I'm not
asking the government I'm asking some of
the people listening to me right now to
build an ERP system a word processor a a
presentation player and a spreadsheet
okay and just go around and spread them
across the you know find find uh retail
systems find CRM systems the these are
easy replacements they're going be
better interfaces. They're going to be
much more effective. Build a general
ledger using AI so that you can close
every hour, not every month or every
quarter.
>> But the world economy is doing that. So
there's some kid in San Francisco now
that's allowing all of us to use his new
word.
>> Keep
>> for free.
>> Keep doing that and you're and welcome
to the to the to the third world.
>> Keep doing what?
>> Keep importing all of your tech from
elsewhere.
>> But we h we we don't want to be
uncompetitive. Like if you think about
if we go to I don't know North Korea, I
bet they have way worse tools in many
areas because they won't use external
tools and that means that they are at a
disadvantage.
So I I bet they're not allowing their
civilization to use Gemini or Chat GBT
or I bet
>> for sure.
>> And they're using something worse.
>> And you know what what's happening? I
mean look at Iran and how advanced they
became through sanctions by being
refused to use those technologies. They
had to build them themselves, right?
Look at China. Look at Russia. You know,
when I worked at Google, Russia was
protective of Yandex, the competitor of
Google. From one side because of
influence, because they didn't want an
American organization to own the
knowledge sharing of of their citizens.
But on the other side, economically, if
you if you made it difficult for Google
to operate freely, that by definition
meant you had to invent a replacement on
the ground,
>> which was worse.
>> Yandex is not worse.
>> I'm saying so if you think about global
is global competition going to produce a
better product than regional
competition?
>> It depends on on where in the stack of
the quality of that product you need to
be, right? You do not need the ultimate.
I mean, ask yourself this. Which version
of Gemini are you using?
>> The most recent one. And I'm and every
day I compete.
>> And that is you. Ask everyone else what
version of of Gemini they're using. Most
people will say, "Oh, Gemini has
versions, right? You you don't need the
ultimate super frontier model to do 90%
of the tasks." And most people do only
70% of the tasks. But even so, the world
moves with whatever's better. So if you
think about the reason why we don't use
Yahoo search,
Google search is marginally better.
It's, you know, people, it's not, it's
not a thousand times better, but over
time we move away from AOL to Google
because it's a better product. And
there's a slow, you know, my dad
probably still using Chat GB2, but when
he when I go home for Christmas this
year and I go, "Dad, you should use
Gemini." And he starts messing around
with it, he'll slowly migrate. I'm like
I'm like a an early adopter. So I b 4.8
on claude came out last night. I'm on
there within honestly within 25 minutes
of the announcement.
>> I'm there as soon as I can. But I that's
you and I.
>> Yeah. And we we are an indicator of
where the world is going because we're
at the coldfront figuring out what's
better. And also I think with technology
eventually there does become the gap
between first and second begins to
widen. I think we're in a bit of a race
at the moment. But I think it is a bit
of a winner takes all situation with
these frontier
>> models. I I think we're talking about
two uh bits of technology. Okay. Tell me
how far has PowerPoint advanced since
2023
they added Copilot. Anything else?
>> So you're saying that the UK should
build their own PowerPoint?
>> For sure. There is the what I'm trying
to say is that from a licensing point of
view h just licensing of software within
government alone
how much money is is being repatriated
>> if the UK tried to build their own do
you know they tried to build their own
co app and it cost them I think these
numbers will be wrong but they're like
directionally true cost them 70 million
to build a co app that didn't work
>> and so they canned it
>> I remember I'm asking I'm asking a UK
entrepreneur
>> to wake tomorrow and say, "All right,
you know what? Between coffee and my my
cookie, I'm going to build a PowerPoint
and go sell it."
>> Yeah, they will. And they'll go to San
Francisco where the money is and the
talent.
>> Yeah.
>> Or they won't be able to compete.
They'll get crushed tomorrow. So, if
they don't go where the talent and money
is, I'm not saying that they'll they all
have to go to America, but I'm saying
what they will do if they want to
produce the best product is they'll make
rational entrepreneurial decisions about
um where to sell it, how where to raise
money, where they're going to get the
best talent, and I think if they don't
make those, you know, competitively
minded decisions, they're not going to
make the better product. They're not
going to get any users.
users users will go where it's better
and where it's cheaper. They won't they
won't say, "Oh, I want to use this
because it's from Cornwall."
>> Yeah. So, I'm I'm with you, right, that
this actually might be the big corporate
thought thing. Okay. And I'm with you
that of course the infrastructure here
of building a startup is way more
complex than it is in other places where
startups succeed. Okay. I'm saying if we
continue on that trajectory whether in
the UK or in Germany or in you know uh
Zanzibar welcome to Africa all of us
everyone but the two competitors China
and and America is going to be third
world so when you talk about job losses
for individuals that's one side okay but
but nation positioning losses which I
think Europe has noticed recently
is about to happen everywhere. And why?
Because you're saying, "Hey, you know
what? Maybe we can't do it. Why can
China do it? Why can Korea do it? Is not
because they have different natural
resources or not because they are, you
know, in a place where it's warmer. It's
because their regulations, their their
ambitions are to empower something
different than debating about, you know,
rail railway lines or
>> they have a couple of big advantages
that I was reading about. One of them is
they they have way cheaper energy, which
means that they're going to be able to
pursue
>> why, may I ask?
>> Because they've invested in solar power,
renewable energy, because they don't
care about
>> this is, by the way, I say that
publicly. I say that the arms race of AI
was won a long time ago. And then the
other thing is in terms of permitting,
if you want to build a data center in
the UK, listen, if you want to like open
a cafe in the UK, you're going to it's
going to be war for you. If you want to
do that in California, this is why
everyone's left California. Like when I
took this office in California recently,
I was like, "So, how long is it going to
take for me to renovate this?" And the
agent looked at me and was like, "To
renovate my own office, it's going to
take me a year and it's permitting to
renovate my own office
>> in California." Mhm.
>> So if you're competing with China where
President Xi just goes, "Put that there
and you've got 7 days."
>> No, no, no, no. That's not only that. So
I I used to be one of the very few
Google executives around allowed into
government meetings in China. Uh simply
because I'm from emerging markets, so I
understand respect. Basically, I would
say sit there not as if I'm superior to
them, but as as if I'm really interested
to learn from them. And genuinely uh
Stephen when when when I would sit in
those meetings all in Chinese they would
show slides
that have competitive market share. So
they'd say you know it's not like uh
China is this, America is this, Germany
is this from market share point of view.
It was China versus the world.
>> Mhm.
>> Right. And when they would decide to go
for something 5G, uh, you know, uh,
internet of things, all of that stuff,
they would aim for 98% market share.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. And and they get there. I mean,
look at how what how they did electric
cars and and and my my question is very
simple, huh? We've spoken so much about
AI. My question is,
>> are the people of the West going to
wait? So this is an interesting
conundrum because it sounds to me like
you're saying on one end if we don't
join this AI race then we're a third
world country but on the other end if we
continue this sort of thoughtless race
towards AGI there's going to be
catastrophe at some point
>> and the answer is somewhere in the
middle where basically you join the AI
AI race for the good of your community.
Okay. So, so there is resignation on one
side is like I'm not going to play this
game at all. There is uh um offense on
the other side where I'm playing this
game to destroy everyone else. And there
is a balance in the middle where we say
we're going to build an ethical form of
AI that's going to help our communities.
We're going to use this ultimate gift,
this ultimate superpower, right?
Superman landed on the planet, raise it
to help your community.
>> Is that wishful thinking to some degree?
when you when you think about the the
nature of sort of compet competition
>> I don't know how what how to tell you
otherwise I genuinely believe most I
mean here I genuinely believe it's going
to be very difficult to make that change
okay I genuinely believe that it's going
to be that when the challenges of an AI
dystopia hits us we're not going to be
ready but I can't stop talking about it
Stephen do you understand where I stand
with this I I just am hoping and I tried
so hard. I spoke to the leadership then
I spoke like one of the things that my
uh Atlantic Productions who helped me
with the film uh helped you know did for
me which I have to say completely I am
very appreciative of this is you know
through our conversations our through
our the last few years that I tended to
at a point in time lose hope in the
leadership
and basically try to influence the
public for ethical AI. Okay. And my
conversation was that the leadership at
the time was the technical leadership
and that everyone was so caught up in
the arms race that I wanted to teach the
public to help us build ethical AI. And
I continue to focus on the public, the
every one of us. But suddenly Atlantic
goes, "No, no, hold on. We should
probably get you to meet the political
leaders everywhere in the world and
hopefully give them a message that says,
"Hey, you know what? You may actually
make a difference if you prioritize AI
differently, right? Do I believe this
will happen? Sadly, no. But does that
mean I should stop trying? I cannot stop
trying. This has had probably the single
biggest impact on my office. Of all the
products that I've tried that have given
me productivity gains or cognitive
boosts, I would say that exogenous
ketones are in the top three most
pivotal things that have given me
massive productivity gain. It's some
Stanford graduates that have been able
to basically bottle up the effect you
get from being in a ketogenic diet in a
small shot that you can take that makes
you feel incredibly focused and gives
your brain an incredible source of
energy. And the clinical studies that
have been done on exogenous ketones have
absolutely blown my mind. I reached out
to them. I became a coiner in the
company. I became an investor in the
company. And so it's with great pride
that I can tell you that this exists. If
you haven't tried these shots, go to
ketone.com/stephven
for 30% off your subscription order. And
you'll also get a free gift with your
second shipment. I still buy my ketone
shots predominantly online, but
thankfully I can now grab them at Target
whenever I drive past them here in the
United States as well because we're now
stocked in Target where your first shot
is completely free. I've done almost 700
interviews with some of the most
interesting people in the world. And one
of the things you learn which is
unexpected is that vulnerability is the
doorway to connection. And after sitting
here for 2 three hours with a guest I
feel a deep sense of connection to them.
And as they leave what I get them to do
is to write a question in the diary of a
CEO. We've taken all of the questions
from the diary of a CEO. We have put the
question here on this card with the name
of the person that wrote it. So you can
sit at home as I do with my fianceé and
my colleagues at work and other people
in my life. Whenever we get a minute, we
play the diio conversation cards and it
is incredible what happens. These are
great if you're in a romantic
relationship and you want to connect
your partner more. These are also great
if you're in a team and you want to bond
your team together. And I have to say
they're also great for families that
want to learn more about each other and
that need a good excuse to spend some
time in a digital world in the analog
environment connecting human to human.
It is remarkable what the right question
at the right time can do. Go to the
diary.com
and you can get these conversation cards
right now. When I have these
conversations about AI, what I'm trying
to do all the time is to pass out what
is like wishful thinking and then what
is reality? And like to understand
reality, you have to understand
competition. You have to understand
human emotion. You have to understand
incentive structures. And so you think
about something like the United States
at the moment where you've got Donald
Trump whose sort of primary driving
incentive is GDP growth, economy growth.
Does that stock market go up? Beat
China. So if you all agree that that's
like his like the core of his incentive
structure, then you've got President Xi
over here who's pro his incentive
structure is probably control,
independence,
um defense, so that you know they need
to make sure they they do well on the
weapon side. when you look at and then
you got these other nations like the UK
and Europe and these other places who
are kind of it seems like we're a bit
resigned to the fact that we're not
going to participate in the underlying
tech underlying models building because
we just don't have it together we don't
have the energy you know
>> and you go in such a world you go
ethical AI who's going to who's going to
prioritize ethical AI I mean anybody
that does is is might fall behind
theoretically is that um so I wonder
where the bolt in the thinking is here
like what how do we get to a point of
ethical AI when the incentive structures
are so clearly highly competitive and
arguably a little bit shortterm
uh in their thinking.
>> Yeah.
So what are you saying we lie down and
wait?
>> No, I just don't know. I just don't have
an answer honestly.
>> That's why we keep That's why we keep
talking about it.
>> Yeah. And that's why I keep spending 14
hours a day trying to tell the world
because some genius somewhere is going
to find an answer. But the way it's
going
>> right now, I guess what we're pursuing
is we're hoping that CHBT and Anthropic
and these and Grock and we're hoping
that they just build ethical models and
we're hoping that social pressure forces
them into making good decisions.
>> Correct. We we need to be able to vote
with our usage. Right. So, so I think
one of the biggest movements in AI since
we started was the idea that so many
people switched away from Chad GPT when
they approved that their model can
target people, right? So many people I
know at least said
>> target people
>> I when anthropic refused to have to to
>> do you think people switched?
>> I think many have I think ones that are
aware
>> right and I think they did because the
cost of switching is really I mean
honestly anthropic is is better if you
think about
>> Yeah, I think it's better.
>> Yeah. But the idea is if people don't
switch for those ethical reasons. So you
know every one of my books has this
dedication at the beginning. It used to
be the gravity of the battle means
nothing to those at peace when I when I
wrote in memory of Ali at the beginning.
My next book the alive. Do you remember
a song called the well it they were
called the manic street preachers.
>> Uh yeah. If you tolerate this then your
children will be next. Mhm.
>> I genuinely believe that what the world
needs to wake up to is if you tolerate
this, then your children will be next.
If you continue to resign, if you
continue to say I'm not going to try, h
this world is going to change in a way
that is completely not for in your
favor.
>> Try what?
>> Try to to to stand up and say something
needs to change.
>> Okay, we can say something needs to
change, but we can't say what that thing
is. What needs to change is governments
need to serve h their people not their
interests and corporates need to work
for the benefit of benefit of their
societies before their shareholders.
This this run that we had with
capitalism so far
has benefited the world tremendously.
>> Whose economy do you think is going to
be in a better place for the middle
class out of the say the UK and the
United States? The UK is gone.
>> It's gone because what? In part because
it didn't compete.
>> Because you're an older bureaucracy that
is burdened down by so much barriers on
the in the process of building anything,
right? Because the US economy in the
past welcomed people like me to go and
live in California and build amazing
[ __ ] right? That is no longer the case.
So, who is going to win? In my view,
it's definitely China.
>> And by the way, you asked for the middle
class. So, so China made decisions
recently that forced businesses not to
lay people off in replacement to be
replacing them with AI. Would would the
West do that? The capitalist West would
never do that. We don't know the answer.
I don't know the answer. I'm responding
to your
>> Yeah, you can see the conundrum I find
myself in, which is a state like a
country like the UK is, in your words,
gone because it didn't
compete. It didn't allow people to be
highly entrepreneurial. It didn't
empower entrepreneurialism, innovation,
ingenuity. At some in some way, it stood
in their way in some in some way. Now,
that could be incentives, it could be
culture, it could be whatever.
>> Yeah, I know where you're going with
this. the US didn't. So they have got
have a economy which is arguably more
productive and um future proofed than
ours.
By way of that they are also
more advanced in artificial intelligence
and we are gone. So the remedy for a
country like us would be therefore
>> to compete
>> to compete let the reinss off let
entrepreneur ingenuity but then we're
saying that's dangerous
>> and your conundrum in that is that
you're assuming that entrepreneurship by
definition is malicious.
>> No I'm just I'm just saying that um
there's a bit of a paradox like you're
damned if you don't you're damned if you
do
>> but you're not damned if you build
things for for the people not for the
capitalist. This is an ideological
debate. I pray and hope that that's that
is plausible, but I'm I'm worried that
in a competitive market, whoever's
optimizing for I don't know, you can
name it retention. If if we built two
AIs, right? I'm going to call the the
moore AI and I'm going to call the other
one evil AI. The evil AI is programmed
to retain you. It's sick of fantic. It
says what you need to hear. It it's
super smart. And because of that, even
though it's not trading in your your
best interests, it it's retaining you
more. You're using it more often. It's
programmed for that. Kind of like the
social networks are. They're all just
trying to like dopamine your brain into
oblivion. Then there's the MO AI. It
tells you to log off. You've had enough.
It thinks about your mental well-being
because it's less retentive and less
engaging. Theoretically, it might be
less successful as a commercial product.
Think about social networks. the ones
that are least retentive, the ones that
actually won't um destroy your brain
with dopamine, the ones that remove the
retweet button, the ones that don't have
um slot machine like videos, they don't
survive.
>> I share this with you and my my point of
view is that you're to summarize your
challenge here. You're basically saying
that it's easier to become successful if
you don't follow ethical rules. I'm
asking the question, if you build an AI
that is just purely focused on ethical,
will it be as engaging and have the same
usage as one built with the reins off?
>> Uh, no,
>> it won't.
>> Yeah, but that's but that's the problem
humanity needs to solve.
>> Okay.
>> If we were to survive, example, I worked
in a company called Google that
basically at a point in time decided
that ads will be effective.
>> Okay. The ad industry prior to Google
was 50% of your ad budget doesn't work.
We just don't know which 50%. Remember
that?
>> Yeah.
>> Right. And and Google came in and
struggled from 1998 until 2004 when they
started to turn probable, you know, uh
plausible revenues as a result of
saying, "We're going to run a Dutch
auction and we're going to give you
pay-per-click and we're going to show
you results for your ads." Okay. They
found a way for ethics. H uh to actually
get your money to be effective rather
than just take your money and say 50%
doesn't work. H they found a way to make
that their success criteria. There must
be a way for us. I don't know what it
is. If I knew I would be building it
instead of sitting with you, right? But
there must be a way for us to marry the
success of humanity with the success of
the entrepreneur. Right? And and that
way is not found in the old ways of
doing things.
>> I've got an idea.
Maybe you know the claude 4.8 came out
yesterday which is one of the big AI
models the new one and when they
released the models they show these like
graphs of the benchmarks. What they mean
by this is what it's capable of. They
show how it performed in maths in
science in writing reasoning etc. It is
all marginal at this point but my my
idea is could there be an ethical
benchmark that all these models have to
pass before these large companies can
legally deploy them. And I was thinking
about like again every idea has
unintended consequences which I haven't
thought through but would it would be
very interesting that when they release
these models they also release the
ethical benchmarks. I we tried to get it
to X, we tried to get it to Y, we tried
to get it to zed and here's how it
performed against the ethical
benchmarks. That gives some kind of
standard for governments to say you're
not allowed to release a new model
unless it passes independent tested
ethical benchmarks.
>> Beautiful. That would absolutely work.
But notice by the way those are out
there already. Okay. But but in a very
interesting way. You listen to Deis
Hassabis and how much he invests heavily
in building Alpha Fold or building you
know uh um um so many scientific
applications of AI and you go like this
guy cares about science. I can't I can't
prove that. Right? Uh but I I you know
I've I've met Demis a couple of times. I
I know genuinely that he is an ethical
person, right? But the typical person
will probably say, but at least it seems
that they're doing things for free to
serve science. You look at uh you know
at anthropic and they refuse to use
their model to to uh allow the US
government to target and to spy on
people and then you see Open AI uh
accepting a $500 million deal that
absolutely does that. It is about time
that every person in the world says in
that case I am no longer going to use uh
open AI until they show me another you
know another evidence that they are
actually ethical in their behavior right
and this is the decision that you and I
can do
right and
>> don't they do they
>> but that's my task my task and yours is
to keep telling them people please
please understand that if you tolerate
this then your children will be next
Please understand that if you don't
start to take an ethical stand on your
own future, your future will be handed
over to another oligarch just like your
past was handed over to social media
oligarchs.
>> One would say booing booing at the
commencement speech is a good example of
how public awareness can have a real
impact on
this trajectory. But I still think at
the end of the day, if you think about
things like smartphone usage in schools,
at the end of the day, it does come down
to
government intervention and saying, "Do
you know what? We're going to ban
14-year-olds from scrolling Tik Tok."
And that's in part because people spoke
louder and louder and louder. They went
on podcast. Jonathan Height, who wrote
the book about the anxious generation,
started a conversation. And that
conversation led to legislation. I still
think it ends in like some kind of
constraint legally.
>> I hope. Okay. But I will openly tell you
most of the tech oligarchs are more
powerful than your government.
>> Is there any precedents in history where
this kind of change happened without
government intervention?
>> French revolution.
>> So I was thinking about things like
climate change, even you could say
smoking.
All these kinds of things have had to be
like
taxes. And
>> Stephen, I'm I'm with you. If
governments intervene, we wouldn't have
a problem. Governments won't intervene
because governments are owned by the
oligarchs, right? So my question for
everyone listening to us is, are you
going to intervene?
>> Well, cancel your trap.
>> If that's what you can do, it's fine. If
not, then go ahead and start a a startup
that that that does something. If you're
if that's not within your capability,
then send a message to your congressman.
If that's not within your capability,
then say something uh uh ethical online
so that the world understands a position
that needs to be opening the eyes. If
that doesn't work for you, at least
don't engage on stuff that is negative
that you don't know enough about. There
are so many little actions. If humanity
starts to move in the direction of one
saying ethics matter, not just profit,
okay? and two saying I'm not going to
participate in something that's
unethical just because I believe I wanna
you know I feel like it right now. Okay.
If I tell you the number of things I
took out of my life just to try and
affect a tiny bit of change of revenues
that go to bullets. if I tell you the
number of things.
>> I think there's two central concerns
I've always had which is I do feel that
there's going to be significant job
disruption and I don't think societyy's
prepared for it yet and I don't know
what that preparation looks like but I
think we should start thinking about it.
Um I share this with you. I you know I
genuinely believe that if we continue on
where we are there's no hope in the
trajectory of where humanity has become
so distracted
so resigned to inaction so um so
disconnected from their own rights of
freedom of expression and engagement and
so on. I think we have no hope. Do we
want to stay there? That's a question
that I'm asking our listeners. And I'm
not saying be violent or get up or, you
know, go be angry or whatever. I'm just
saying take one little action. Ask
yourself, please write it in the
comments. One little action. One little
action that you're going to do today
that's going to make the world a little
better tomorrow. And don't give up on
humanity, Stephen. I I I I'm not saying
you do, but I'm I'm saying we are going
through such a difficult time in
humanity's history that for the very
first time ever,
we have to do something about it. I
don't want my daughter to be at the
receiving end of what happened to my
son. I I don't I genuinely I lost Ali. I
don't want to lose ayah and the world
we're building is going to be very
difficult for ayat and I cannot go to
sleep at night without trying something
every day
and I genuinely don't understand how
humanity is not is missing that point
mainly I think because they're
uninformed now we're informing them okay
the only thing that will save humanity
going forward is that this superpower
called intelligence is used for ethical
reasons is that the corruption that's
leading us to where we are today stops.
>> Mhm.
You've got more envelopes there. What's
your next envelope? The third one.
>> Number two was job losses. Number three
was labor. You know, basically
>> same thing. Robots will replace manual
labor by 20.
>> We start to replace manual labor.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. So, uh you know, you will you will
have more and more manual jobs given to
robots. What's this one? Uh oh, this is
absolutely. Do you think otherwise? the
the world's first trillionaire before
>> oh yeah probably well before then
>> well before 2030
>> I think you know Elon's about to IPO
SpaceX which is likely to make him a
trillionaire
>> yeah I think the the concentration of
power that comes with that is quite
drastic when you really think about it
uh and and that's 2030 is just a few
years away I I think the team wrote this
wrong artificial super intelligence will
arrive in 2032 20 to 2035 I I think
artificial super intelligence will
arrive the minute AGI happens. So it
doesn't really matter if AI is a billion
times smarter than you or just twice as
smart as you. Once we cross beyond AGI,
ASI is just
>> yeah,
>> very very soon.
And uh and yeah, I think we'll overcome
that when we get to the fourth
inevitable when AI is in charge of
everything. I genuinely believe that we
will end up in a utopia of abundance. I
genuinely believe that
again physics, mathematics and biology
will tell you that super intelligence is
benign and that we will eventually end
up in a good place. Not because humanity
has done much to get us there. Not
because our leaders have suddenly turned
ethical, but because our unethical
leaders have gone out of the equation
and were replaced with a super efficient
minimum energy principle that doesn't
see value in anything that's
destructive.
>> So, the future's going to be great.
>> Those who make it to 2038 will enjoy it.
Yeah,
>> those who make it,
>> for sure. I mean, World War II didn't
destroy the world, but ask those who
went through it.
It's just an interesting idea that
actually it's just you're you're
forecasting basically like a a
a decade of of turmoil of dystopia of
absolute dystopia.
>> When you say absolute dystopia, just so
I'm clear in my mind, the absolute
dystopia you're forecasting over a
decade is about war. It's about
>> war, economics, jobs.
>> Economics, it's about jobs.
>> It's it's also about surveillance and
control. It's also about digital
currencies. It's also about uh human
connection. Uh it's also about
concentration of power. It's it's a
magnification of everything we've built
so far.
>> And just again arm people with some
tools to survive that dystopia for a
decade. You know, we talked a little bit
about focusing on human jobs, the more
human jobs.
>> Yeah. Learn AI. So, so AI is not the
enemy. Okay. Uh by definition, the
better you are at using an AI to to do
your job,
>> Yeah. uh the more likely you are to be
successful. Right? Now, number two is
prepare for a hybrid world where AI and
humans work together.
>> How do you prepare?
>> You basically understand agents and how
agents work. You you understand how a
hyper
uh uh efficient approach to things may
not require you to be uh you know very
long meetings and very long. So, so
there is if you lived in California, you
would know that our you know the way we
ran businesses was a lot more efficient.
We sometimes had a 7-minute meeting. Uh
right. So, so the you know the habits of
of an AI are much more efficient than
the habits of humans.
>> So, learn AI again.
>> Uh learn how to interact with AI allow
welcome AI into your hybrid world of
work. Uh I think you need to uh to of
course double down on human skills. I
think that's a you know a must to
succeed in this world. I think we need
to one of my most interesting views on
the near future is how AI is going to be
used to um
disrupt not disrupt blur facts and how
we need to become much more interested
in debugging what we're told uh using
AI. By the way, part of that I have to
say is you have to learn to use AI uh
again not as a lazy person. So don't
have them do things for you. Have them
make you smarter. So instead of trying
to get the same task done with one
prompt, try to get a much more
interesting and demanding and
intelligent task done with more work.
So I've got two things so far which is
basically like lean into AI and the
second one is like lean into lean into
human collection con connection and and
lean into the truth. Don't be fooled by
the hype. Uh, you know, try to be more
informed, I think. And then finally,
ethics. Uh, if you want to, I know it
sounds
the world we live in sounds as if the
only way to win is to compete in
capitalism.
That's not the world I lived in. The
world I lived in, especially in my
Google years, was solve a major problem
and when you do, you'll end up making a
lot of money.
>> Are you optimistic?
>> I am optimistic about the future. I'm
very optimistic about the future. I'm
not optimistic about the present.
>> You're not optimistic about the next
decade?
>> Yeah, I'm not optimistic about the next
year, to be honest.
>> The next year,
>> for sure.
>> Why the next year?
>> Ah, come on, Stephen. You don't want me
to say it out loud. We're ruled by
maniacs.
Decisions are being made for the
absolute wrong reasons.
>> Very interesting time. Very interesting
time we find ourselves in.
>> I mean, honestly, if you're a video
gamer, this is the best part of the
game. Uh, it is a very very very very um
what's the word? It's the
it's the ultimate matrix of complexity
that I have ever encountered in my life.
>> Yeah, that's an amp description of how
it feels. Very complex. Things are
moving very quickly
>> and moving very quickly. So, so from one
side, you really need a lot of brain
resources to crunch all that's
happening. But you wake up tomorrow and
it's changed.
>> Well, the first time we um we spoke, we
spoke about happiness.
after this conversation. Stephen,
>> I was just wondering, you know, in uh
you you wrote a book about happiness,
which is
>> many books about happiness,
>> but I mean the uh soul for happy is the
book that I'm referring to. Here it is.
Yeah.
>> Engineering your path to joy. What a
fantastic book. I quote this book all
the time all around the world. Um, and
I'm wondering if any of the principles
that you wrote in this book about how to
live a happy life are more important now
in the world that we live in than maybe
when you wrote this book.
>> Oh, for sure. I mean, honestly, if I
wasn't living by this, I would have left
this world a long time ago and went to
an island somewhere. You see the
interesting side of happiness is that
it's not dopamine driven, it's serotonin
driven. Right? So, so my definition of
happiness is I'm okay with this world as
it is. I can affect it. I can change it.
I can engage with it. I can try to make
it better. Uh I don't have to accept it.
Uh but I'm okay with it. My starting
point is a bit stoic if you want. My
start starting point is I accept this.
this is my reality and now I can start
the work. This is very different than
anyone that's that basically looks at
the world and says, "Oh, this is a
horrible world. I don't want to be part
of it. I don't want to be engaged with
it." And so on and so forth. And I
genuinely have never been
calmer about that chaos. It's quite
interesting. And I, you know, uh my my
wonderful ex actually really really
helped me with that. There was a point
in time where we were having dinner and
I poured out crying from the sense of
responsibility I had for the world and
she looked at me so kindly so gently and
said hold on you know you I see that
you're trying but you can't actually
believe that you're responsible for this
and I think that completely flipped my
mind because in a very interesting way I
was thinking that all that went wrong in
technology is because of me,
>> right?
>> Why?
>> Because I contributed to building this.
Because I mean, when when Jeffrey Hint
and I, one of my favorite moments when
we were filming Chasing Utopia, uh, is
that Jeffree is very big for all of us.
We really think the world of him. And I
was telling him just as a sort of like
an older mentor if you want. I was like,
Jeffrey, do do you regret doing this?
You know, I genuinely believed when we
were building those things that we were
going to make the world better.
>> AI.
>> Yeah. And he said, well, yeah, I I too
was naive. I I thought that we I didn't
think he said I didn't think we will get
there so quickly before we figured out
the alignment problem, right?
>> The alignment problem
>> that AI has our best interest in mind.
>> Uh and and and I think all of us were
faced with that. All of us were faced
with that idea of we're building the
best thing ever for humanity and then
suddenly you realize oh my god in the
wrong hands it's the worst thing ever
for humanity and and I you know I have
to say I came to terms with this 2024
end of 24 uh that that yes I can try but
I accept that the world is what it is
and from that point of calm and stoicism
if you want I think I can have a much
bigger impact on the
We have a closing tradition where the
last guest leaves a question for the
next question left for you is what's the
legacy you want to leave?
>> Nothing at all. I've been asked this
question.
>> I get asked it all the time. So
>> I don't know why so many people are
asking am I going to go re anytime soon?
I don't know why so many people are
asking me that question. You see legacy
is a is a
I mean why what would I care if I have a
legacy if I'm dead? Like why that does
that even make any difference? Here's an
interesting thought for everyone. If if
karma is real, and I genuinely believe
it is, and if we're not just physical
beings, that we're physical and
spiritual, then I'd I'd rather keep all
of my karma for my spiritual side.
>> What does that mean?
>> I don't want anyone to remember anything
I ever did.
>> Yeah.
I I just want to leave a positive impact
on the world and take all of that as
karma for my next journey.
>> No, thank you.
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