1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,700 What's the most important thing you have mapped that changes what individuals should be doing now? 2 00:00:06,900 --> 00:00:07,980 It changes year by year. 3 00:00:09,780 --> 00:00:10,900 In the moment. 4 00:00:10,900 --> 00:00:25,700 Yeah, the big things I'm kind of struggling with, and it's up of mind for me, is where the technology is going, driven largely by Elon, and where the nation is going or where the nation went. 5 00:00:26,300 --> 00:00:29,160 That affects Americans and Europeans and everyone else. 6 00:00:29,160 --> 00:00:34,640 is post-nationalism and the effect it has on people 7 00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:36,640 and what we can expect from the state 8 00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:38,960 and what we can expect from society going forward. 9 00:00:39,060 --> 00:00:43,500 Broad strokes, what's the message that you give to individuals 10 00:00:43,500 --> 00:00:46,220 in an elevator-length conversation? 11 00:00:46,420 --> 00:00:48,640 You know, when they ask you, John, what do you see what's coming? 12 00:00:48,800 --> 00:00:51,080 From the post-nationalism perspective, 13 00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:53,900 it's our common identities of loud, high trust, 14 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:58,340 kind of coherent, cohesive society to operate, gone. 15 00:00:58,340 --> 00:01:05,780 We have lots and lots of identities now, and social networking and everything else on the internet kind of fragments that, amplifies it. 16 00:01:28,340 --> 00:01:35,640 no gimmicks. Go to trustrevolution.co. That's trustrevolution.co. Okay, let's get into it. 17 00:01:36,980 --> 00:01:43,600 John, Rob, welcome back. Thank you, John. I appreciate it. It has been not quite a year, 18 00:01:43,700 --> 00:01:49,240 10 months since we spoke last April, and you have been very busy. Not surprisingly, 19 00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:54,600 you published a great deal. Let's jump in here. Of all of that, what's the most important thing 20 00:01:54,600 --> 00:02:01,400 you have mapped that changes what individuals should be doing now it changes year by year 21 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:07,720 the big thing in the moment yeah the big things i'm i'm kind of struggling with and it's 22 00:02:07,720 --> 00:02:17,360 of mine for me is where the technology is going driven largely by elon and where the um the nation 23 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:22,820 is going or where the nation went that affects americans and europeans and everyone else it's 24 00:02:22,820 --> 00:02:29,740 is post-nationalism and the effect it has on people and what we can expect from the state 25 00:02:29,740 --> 00:02:33,220 and what we could expect from society going forward. And those two things are the things 26 00:02:33,220 --> 00:02:40,120 I've been focusing on. And what is that broad strokes? What's the message that you give to 27 00:02:40,120 --> 00:02:44,720 individuals in a elevator-length conversation? You know, when they ask you, John, 28 00:02:44,820 --> 00:02:48,920 what do you see what's coming? How do you summarize that for them if it's possible? 29 00:02:48,920 --> 00:02:54,280 From the post-nationalism perspective, it's our common identities of loud, high trust, 30 00:02:54,740 --> 00:02:58,700 kind of coherent, cohesive society to operate, gone. 31 00:02:59,260 --> 00:03:00,980 We have lots and lots of identities now. 32 00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:06,460 And social networking and everything else on the internet kind of fragments that, amplifies it. 33 00:03:07,380 --> 00:03:10,040 And that makes social decision-making almost impossible. 34 00:03:10,880 --> 00:03:12,480 Because we don't trust each other anymore. 35 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:15,800 And everything anyone else says, you treat it like an attack. 36 00:03:16,060 --> 00:03:17,520 You don't trust what they say. 37 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:23,480 There isn't this common identity to kind of ground us, kind of like being an American or being German or being anyone. 38 00:03:23,720 --> 00:03:28,540 And that means that the state is not functioning the way it becomes a system. 39 00:03:28,860 --> 00:03:32,980 And nobody has loyalty and considers a system legitimate. 40 00:03:33,460 --> 00:03:38,700 It's like one thing I've picked up recently is that everybody is trying to beat the system. 41 00:03:38,700 --> 00:03:43,720 take the opportunity, even the people that never really did anything like outside the box, 42 00:03:43,900 --> 00:03:49,880 the legalities or decorum or morality in the past, they will take advantage of that system 43 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:54,680 and cheat it and loot it. If the opportunity becomes available and is costless, that's a huge 44 00:03:54,680 --> 00:04:01,480 shift. So we can expect this kind of general looting and individualistic behavior and dysfunctional 45 00:04:01,480 --> 00:04:07,060 governance going forward on that side. Not going to get any better. And on the other side is this 46 00:04:07,060 --> 00:04:10,180 technological shift with AI and autonomy. 47 00:04:10,340 --> 00:04:12,220 Autonomy is more important to me than AI, 48 00:04:12,220 --> 00:04:13,680 but it encompasses robotics. 49 00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:16,260 It includes AI workers and the like. 50 00:04:16,420 --> 00:04:17,580 Embodied AI, would you say? 51 00:04:19,620 --> 00:04:24,420 Autonomy makes AI capable of doing real work, 52 00:04:24,540 --> 00:04:27,180 shifting from just doing tasks for three, four hours, 53 00:04:27,240 --> 00:04:28,160 and then it falls apart. 54 00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:32,600 You have to reboot the task to being a coworker 55 00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:38,220 or a robotic colleague or employee 56 00:04:38,220 --> 00:04:40,020 that does work over time, 57 00:04:40,060 --> 00:04:40,860 that you could train, 58 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:42,020 that you can learn to trust 59 00:04:42,020 --> 00:04:44,380 because their behavior is consistent over time. 60 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:47,220 And we're getting close to cracking autonomy. 61 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:49,440 I was like, to eat my own horn, 62 00:04:49,540 --> 00:04:51,780 I think we found a methodology for doing that. 63 00:04:51,980 --> 00:04:54,160 But I think they'll stumble in 64 00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:56,820 is that those Optimus robots you see coming, 65 00:04:57,000 --> 00:04:57,800 when they come, 66 00:04:58,020 --> 00:04:59,800 they're not really going to be that useful 67 00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:01,640 in the home environment or in most tasks 68 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:03,380 because they don't have autonomy. 69 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:06,000 They're not persistent over time 70 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:07,440 in terms of their cognition, 71 00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:08,800 in terms of their behavior, 72 00:05:09,060 --> 00:05:11,080 bounded in terms of their behavior, 73 00:05:11,280 --> 00:05:12,560 able to take instruction 74 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:13,620 and learn from that instruction 75 00:05:13,620 --> 00:05:15,660 and apply it in the future. 76 00:05:15,900 --> 00:05:16,800 Once you crack that, 77 00:05:17,740 --> 00:05:17,980 all of a sudden, 78 00:05:18,180 --> 00:05:19,580 all those optimist robots 79 00:05:19,580 --> 00:05:22,600 become very, very, very useful. 80 00:05:22,700 --> 00:05:24,420 They become trusted companions 81 00:05:24,420 --> 00:05:25,760 in the home doing maid working. 82 00:05:26,460 --> 00:05:28,120 And in industrial settings, 83 00:05:28,220 --> 00:05:30,620 they can work like regular workers 84 00:05:30,620 --> 00:05:33,900 accessing all the human-built systems, 85 00:05:34,020 --> 00:05:34,960 just like a human can, 86 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:38,520 and then improve themselves 87 00:05:38,520 --> 00:05:41,800 and bring our society to a lot more dynamic situation. 88 00:05:43,260 --> 00:05:45,140 And virtual workers become colleagues, 89 00:05:45,300 --> 00:05:47,540 co-workers, trusted employees 90 00:05:47,540 --> 00:05:50,820 when they can operate autonomously for months, years. 91 00:05:51,140 --> 00:05:53,500 They learn from their interactions. 92 00:05:53,780 --> 00:05:56,060 They could take on personalities that generate trust. 93 00:05:56,280 --> 00:05:57,260 Their work is consistent 94 00:05:57,260 --> 00:05:59,700 that you can predict their behavior in the future 95 00:05:59,700 --> 00:06:02,000 and improve it and take management instruction. 96 00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:04,320 Autonomy unlocks all of that. 97 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:06,340 And then all of a sudden we see them doing 98 00:06:06,340 --> 00:06:09,820 all sorts of cognitive work, all sorts of physical work. 99 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:11,480 So yeah, that's coming in. 100 00:06:11,540 --> 00:06:13,020 That's coming really, really quickly. 101 00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:16,460 What's your time horizon or timeframe rather, John, 102 00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:19,960 for let's just even say the next step change 103 00:06:19,960 --> 00:06:22,820 where I think about for those that are in the weeds 104 00:06:22,820 --> 00:06:26,640 with this Opus 4.6 from Anthropic introduces sub-agents 105 00:06:26,640 --> 00:06:30,700 and the ability to build teams or swarms. 106 00:06:30,700 --> 00:06:34,720 In fact, you know, not perhaps your use of the word swarm, 107 00:06:34,820 --> 00:06:39,540 but there's in terms of being able to collect 108 00:06:39,540 --> 00:06:43,560 and work on a particular problem in a persistent manner in parallel. 109 00:06:44,060 --> 00:06:46,300 What's the next step change, do you think, 110 00:06:46,340 --> 00:06:48,240 in terms of moving toward autonomy? 111 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:50,480 Everything I've seen is that, you know, 112 00:06:50,580 --> 00:06:52,400 I don't know if it's a step change. 113 00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:55,500 It's a cognitive model that will keep it consistent over time. 114 00:06:55,500 --> 00:07:04,520 And nobody's got that. They're just trying to load up the amount of information it has available and hard-coded the instructions that it should, you know, stay on a certain task. 115 00:07:04,980 --> 00:07:09,240 Right. And guardrails, harnesses, we hear these terms, yeah. 116 00:07:09,580 --> 00:07:16,320 Yep. And that allows it, I think the best one I've seen is eight hours, which is the latest clod stuff. 117 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:20,280 They can go work on a task of eight hours and then it starts to peter out. 118 00:07:20,280 --> 00:07:26,240 I think this might have been the C compiler they built in Rust and they spent $20,000 in tokens, if I recall. 119 00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:30,960 And out comes a commercial grade C compiler written in Rust. 120 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:34,260 You could do amazing, amazing things in eight hours. 121 00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:34,940 Right. 122 00:07:35,940 --> 00:07:37,840 But it's not a human replacement. 123 00:07:38,060 --> 00:07:39,380 It's like a super tool. 124 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:45,660 And I think our bias is towards super tools because, you know, we're older, you know, boomers, millennials or whatever. 125 00:07:46,200 --> 00:07:47,140 That's the way we think it. 126 00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:49,560 I mean, most boomers treat AI as a search tool. 127 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:51,240 So that's my extent of everything. 128 00:07:51,740 --> 00:07:55,860 And then younger folks are all focusing on them as a work. 129 00:07:57,180 --> 00:08:02,000 Most of the really high-end programmers I know are all getting 20x their productivity. 130 00:08:02,380 --> 00:08:04,940 And not just from automating tasks. 131 00:08:05,180 --> 00:08:06,160 They solve problems. 132 00:08:06,820 --> 00:08:11,720 Gravitate towards the best solution quicker, much, much quicker than they ever used to. 133 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:13,640 And that's what really blows their mind. 134 00:08:13,840 --> 00:08:17,260 And they're very different from almost all other programmers. 135 00:08:17,260 --> 00:08:20,720 You know, it's like some people are really, really leveraged from this stuff. 136 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:21,400 Right. 137 00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:31,020 Well, and speaking of leverage, your long night piece, your long night concept refers to AI surveillance at population scale. 138 00:08:31,200 --> 00:08:35,260 And you wrote in December that it is inevitably coming back. 139 00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:39,820 What's the timeline and when does the window close for building alternatives? 140 00:08:40,260 --> 00:08:45,380 So, you know, first perhaps walk us through what this is and then why is it coming back and what do we do? 141 00:08:45,380 --> 00:08:52,860 Okay, so the Long Night was my term for describing what a surveillance state, 142 00:08:54,060 --> 00:08:57,720 totalitarian surveillance state looks like in the modern age. 143 00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:00,380 You've heard of the Stasi in East Germany. 144 00:09:00,680 --> 00:09:03,960 This does everything the Stasi does, you know, unfold. 145 00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:09,620 Orders of magnitude more, more intrusive, more manipulative, more aggressively, 146 00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:11,680 and orders of magnitude less expensive. 147 00:09:11,680 --> 00:09:15,420 because you don't need roomfuls or buildingfuls of bureaucrats 148 00:09:15,420 --> 00:09:18,740 or you don't need a lot of paid informants 149 00:09:18,740 --> 00:09:19,720 and managed informants. 150 00:09:19,980 --> 00:09:20,660 It's all automated. 151 00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:24,120 And the weird part about it is that operations, 152 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:25,920 the way they've built out our networks, 153 00:09:26,140 --> 00:09:28,660 built everything that is necessary, 154 00:09:28,880 --> 00:09:31,320 and including AI, making this turnkey. 155 00:09:32,140 --> 00:09:35,960 All it takes is kind of the political will 156 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:38,800 or the political mistake to kind of turn it on, 157 00:09:38,840 --> 00:09:39,960 and it's there. 158 00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:47,660 And what we're talking about is like AI surveillance of every single individual, even an AI assigned to every single individual building profiles in them. 159 00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:51,700 And you can scale it to the entire global scale. 160 00:09:51,700 --> 00:10:16,960 I mean, you know, it's, you'd have a billion people watched in real time online, not only just censored, controlled, but manipulated and persuaded to go in certain directions, change their attitudes and then punished and, you know, using the standard kind of a Slovian kind of response is that, you know, get them into pathways that they based on reward and punishment. 161 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:18,500 at a micro scale. 162 00:10:18,760 --> 00:10:19,660 And it can all be done 163 00:10:19,660 --> 00:10:21,480 by a very small group of people 164 00:10:21,480 --> 00:10:24,400 with the right kind of a network access. 165 00:10:25,080 --> 00:10:26,840 All it takes is switch. 166 00:10:26,980 --> 00:10:28,720 The worrisome part is that our politics, 167 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:30,940 because of the collapse of the nation-state, 168 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:32,760 collapse of our common identity, 169 00:10:32,900 --> 00:10:34,080 is turning more into kind of 170 00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:35,260 what I call a hollow state. 171 00:10:35,660 --> 00:10:37,980 It's kind of a state turns into a mechanism 172 00:10:37,980 --> 00:10:41,140 for looting what existed in that nation-state 173 00:10:41,140 --> 00:10:42,220 and transferring it to 174 00:10:42,220 --> 00:10:43,660 politically connected individuals. 175 00:10:43,660 --> 00:11:04,440 So when you think of, say, $450 billion, current budget is being, some people say as high as $750 billion, is being just brutally looted, you know, through false use of subsidies and other things. 176 00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:13,400 And then on the macro scale, you know, programs that shouldn't exist in the Defense Department and other places that are just being, you know, they persist for a long time, even though they have no use. 177 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:16,620 And that's, you know, add that all up and that's well over a trillion. 178 00:11:16,960 --> 00:11:19,180 And it's just being connected. 179 00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:24,120 It's just sucking the money out of the existing system and looting it. 180 00:11:24,420 --> 00:11:28,800 And then that kind of system is largely illegitimate, has no loyalty. 181 00:11:28,940 --> 00:11:29,820 People aren't loyal to it. 182 00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:37,200 And if there's enough pushback, if there's enough chaos caused by it, things degrade and things get less efficient, less useful. 183 00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:43,660 the tendency of that of those people who are benefiting from this and every politician gets 184 00:11:43,660 --> 00:11:51,460 this is like you you've seen the Pelosi portfolio strategy yeah yeah there's no market ups and downs 185 00:11:51,460 --> 00:11:56,440 and everything is just up up up up up up up and that's why she ends up what 400 billion 400 million 186 00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:00,640 dollars but how can a politician it's only been a politician to have 400 million dollars 187 00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:06,580 and that's the everybody's doing that and they'll protect themselves yes and the way they protect 188 00:12:06,580 --> 00:12:12,580 themselves is to you know go to the corporations and say let's hey john i'm gonna stop you it is 189 00:12:12,580 --> 00:12:18,940 i i hate this i hate to to kill the the flow here but it is i'm losing two to three seconds at a time 190 00:12:18,940 --> 00:12:25,980 of your audio yeah so i don't know is it internet is it maybe are you no i've never had i've never 191 00:12:25,980 --> 00:12:30,660 had a problem with my audio before on this well i am sorry i hate it's i hate it's it's us me 192 00:12:30,660 --> 00:12:36,200 we got 90 90 percent in the thing up here yeah that is weird i don't suppose you have a mic 193 00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:44,000 another mic no i just use these here yeah and they're charged up yeah okay well we'll um yeah 194 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:50,600 man they're fully charged um so it's not so internet speed is good i mean i it is the video 195 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:55,500 seems a tad choppy and it could be maybe it's round tripping to me that it's bad and it's 196 00:12:55,500 --> 00:13:00,100 recording well but i just wanted to double check okay you want to test you want to test that because 197 00:13:00,100 --> 00:13:01,400 It looks good to me. 198 00:13:01,540 --> 00:13:05,820 And if the recording's on my end and it's uploaded, you probably should hear everything I say. 199 00:13:06,380 --> 00:13:06,780 It should be. 200 00:13:06,940 --> 00:13:07,140 Okay. 201 00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:07,620 Okay. 202 00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:09,180 So, again, sorry to interrupt. 203 00:13:09,260 --> 00:13:10,320 I just hate to lose the good stuff. 204 00:13:10,580 --> 00:13:12,760 So, we will, well, let's see. 205 00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:17,500 So, I did kind of get you there on, we were talking Pelosi Tracker. 206 00:13:18,040 --> 00:13:19,540 Well, all this will be edited, of course. 207 00:13:20,240 --> 00:13:22,860 Pretty sure that it will have my audio fine on this end. 208 00:13:23,140 --> 00:13:23,400 Okay. 209 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:24,420 Because that will be part of the upload. 210 00:13:24,700 --> 00:13:26,360 Because that's the real way Riverside works, right? 211 00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:26,920 It is. 212 00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:27,220 It is. 213 00:13:27,220 --> 00:13:29,020 It doesn't really matter about the back and forth. 214 00:13:29,020 --> 00:13:34,040 it really just, we both record each other. Yeah. As long as it's not AirPod to your computer, 215 00:13:34,260 --> 00:13:38,380 we're good. As long as it's not actually clipping the audio and recording. So again, 216 00:13:38,380 --> 00:13:43,220 fine. Okay, good. Sorry about that again. So we'll, I'll pick up here. So John, you wrote that, 217 00:13:43,220 --> 00:13:50,200 that Musk buying Twitter only delayed the night, a long night sort of encroaching. Why, 218 00:13:50,420 --> 00:13:56,460 purposely naive question, why didn't that plus Doge stop this? His purchase of Twitter, 219 00:13:56,460 --> 00:13:58,760 and I was ahead of that again, 220 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:00,260 it was like talking about he should buy Twitter 221 00:14:00,260 --> 00:14:01,880 like a year or so before this 222 00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:03,760 and that he would be able to use the AI, 223 00:14:03,980 --> 00:14:05,360 the data for AI, 224 00:14:05,820 --> 00:14:07,080 is that it delayed it 225 00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:10,520 and that the tendency of all these networks 226 00:14:10,520 --> 00:14:11,560 to operate in unison 227 00:14:11,560 --> 00:14:13,880 to kind of scrunch down in free speech 228 00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:15,020 and drive us towards 229 00:14:15,020 --> 00:14:17,660 a kind of approved orthodoxy of thought, 230 00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:19,900 speech, behavior was broken. 231 00:14:20,180 --> 00:14:22,960 There's still this kind of illegitimate 232 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:24,420 kind of looting system out there 233 00:14:24,420 --> 00:14:26,280 that's like broken kind of political 234 00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:31,000 and social system and that the pressure will continue to build to kind of disillusionment 235 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:37,520 and mute it any kind of criticism of it to do things that rock the boat and that musk in terms 236 00:14:37,520 --> 00:14:46,280 of its his operation of x is vulnerable to attack we already saw him kind of hold when uh during the 237 00:14:46,280 --> 00:14:52,480 gaza thing and he could fold from government pressure in the future all the other corporations 238 00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:58,160 would flow to, I mean, the kind of hard stance towards free speech that they professed years 239 00:14:58,160 --> 00:14:59,280 ago is gone. 240 00:14:59,820 --> 00:14:59,840 Right. 241 00:14:59,900 --> 00:15:01,120 Do whatever that's necessary. 242 00:15:01,540 --> 00:15:02,740 Everyone's kind of fatigued. 243 00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:06,080 I don't see, I don't see the long night being stopped. 244 00:15:06,560 --> 00:15:08,000 Just getting easier and easier to do. 245 00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:08,680 Sorry. 246 00:15:08,860 --> 00:15:16,380 So on the thread that you just tugged on, Musk has rolled XAI under X and now X under 247 00:15:16,380 --> 00:15:18,780 SpaceX, if I, if I've got that correct. 248 00:15:18,780 --> 00:15:23,980 And so I do want to come back to that because you and I had a great discussion about that before we started recording. 249 00:15:24,320 --> 00:15:42,640 But to the point of the performative free speech protections, what do you make of the current administration's seemingly bold challenges to the EU and the UK about their threats to free speech, their fines of X, among others? 250 00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:44,540 What is what is happening there? 251 00:15:44,540 --> 00:15:53,060 yeah i mean trump's um trying to reignite kind of a nationalism both here and and also in europe 252 00:15:53,060 --> 00:15:59,560 and because the nationalism starts to refocus people on the benefit of the citizens being 253 00:15:59,560 --> 00:16:03,460 paramount when you start doing that then you start to look at everything in terms of trade 254 00:16:03,460 --> 00:16:08,020 in terms of immigration in terms of defense from a new perspective a different perspective 255 00:16:08,020 --> 00:16:13,420 because right now but i don't know how much he's going to be able to bring us back from 256 00:16:13,420 --> 00:16:19,280 a pure globalization globalist approach to nationalism i think the tennessee still 257 00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:24,480 towards that globalism and globalism is like we're not focused on the prosperity of citizens 258 00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:30,020 anymore we were during the cold war during you know most of the you know the u.s experience 259 00:16:30,020 --> 00:16:39,080 we're focused on like top-line gdp growth and activity uh trade flows people flows 260 00:16:39,080 --> 00:16:45,980 information flows and you as a former citizen are now just a participant in this larger global 261 00:16:45,980 --> 00:16:51,280 system you are on your own and you benefit a little bit from being here versus somewhere else 262 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:58,160 and uh that's a really tough place we're not gonna really help you compete you know you are 263 00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:05,700 competing in this system and um you know less expensive comes along the corporations are you 264 00:17:05,700 --> 00:17:11,200 primary focus because they are the big drivers of the GDP. And if their profitability is great, 265 00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:15,580 then we're doing great. Right. On average. And no matter what the individual, you know, 266 00:17:15,620 --> 00:17:20,500 the mean is for any individual in the U.S. And I think one of the things that you wrote that I 267 00:17:20,500 --> 00:17:27,920 found striking, and you touched on it just a moment ago, is that it was the end of the Cold 268 00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:34,720 War at which the American middle class began its precipitous decline. Tell us a bit more about why 269 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:49,758 that is and why perhaps it taken so long for us to recognize that it has been ongoing for that long Yeah The cold door of course was a life and death struggle for the U In order to withstand the kind of pressures associated 270 00:17:49,758 --> 00:17:54,178 with it and prevail over the long term, we globalized to an extent that means we had trading 271 00:17:54,178 --> 00:17:58,858 partners and we created a national trading system that had ties to the rest of the world. But the 272 00:17:58,858 --> 00:18:04,858 focus was primarily on the progress and prosperity of the middle class because that provided kind of 273 00:18:04,858 --> 00:18:10,758 a bulwark against socialist intrusion, the communist intrusion. The messaging just broke 274 00:18:10,758 --> 00:18:18,678 apart against the middle class that was adhesive, had firm underlying social structures like the 275 00:18:18,678 --> 00:18:25,798 family unit and the like. And when the Cold War ended, the need for that middle class to fill out 276 00:18:25,798 --> 00:18:31,078 their armies, to drive the technology forward, to be loyal, disappeared. Everyone who had money 277 00:18:31,078 --> 00:18:34,558 and benefited a little bit from that financialization 278 00:18:34,558 --> 00:18:37,098 that happened in the 80s, decided we're now global. 279 00:18:37,358 --> 00:18:38,958 And then all those smarmy, you know, 280 00:18:38,998 --> 00:18:41,038 world is flat and history and all that other stuff 281 00:18:41,038 --> 00:18:43,458 started coming out and that pop stuff became law. 282 00:18:44,458 --> 00:18:47,418 In every talk show, if you talked about fair trade 283 00:18:47,418 --> 00:18:49,798 versus free trade, you were considered a protectionist. 284 00:18:49,878 --> 00:18:52,938 If you said we shouldn't be involved in all these alliances 285 00:18:52,938 --> 00:18:55,018 and wars around the world, oh wait, 286 00:18:55,198 --> 00:18:58,358 you are now an isolationist off the show, 287 00:18:58,618 --> 00:19:00,058 off the conversational platform. 288 00:19:00,058 --> 00:19:05,078 we went straight globalized globalization and that changed the perspective is that we don't have to 289 00:19:05,078 --> 00:19:09,378 you know worry about the prosperity of the middle class we don't have to worry about 290 00:19:09,378 --> 00:19:16,458 what they're doing we have to do is give them opportunities for connectivity 291 00:19:16,458 --> 00:19:21,778 you can travel more you can you can get more information from around the world 292 00:19:21,778 --> 00:19:29,718 you can do things that people come in yeah that doesn't really work uh i mean historically i 293 00:19:29,718 --> 00:19:34,638 I mean, cosmopolitan empires require kind of this cohesive internal group. 294 00:19:34,758 --> 00:19:36,398 It doesn't change over time. 295 00:19:36,458 --> 00:19:41,778 And they rule dictatorially over everyone else, but they allow them a lot of freedom of action and freedom of religion and everything else. 296 00:19:42,078 --> 00:19:43,238 But they're never in charge. 297 00:19:43,818 --> 00:19:45,218 And we don't have that. 298 00:19:45,418 --> 00:19:46,598 We globalized everything. 299 00:19:46,738 --> 00:19:48,738 So it's like, it's just a mishmash. 300 00:19:49,678 --> 00:19:52,878 Well, and I raised that and I appreciate you taking us through that. 301 00:19:52,878 --> 00:20:02,678 And the reason I did is I wanted to connect then back to the specifics of their surveillance threat model and the long night returning. 302 00:20:02,678 --> 00:20:22,278 And so there was, if I understand you, a bulwark against it in Elon acquiring X and change of administration, Democrat-Republican here in the U.S., with what you have written about most recently, the, I think it's fair to say, the inevitable return of the left, 303 00:20:22,278 --> 00:20:23,218 to the Democrat Party. 304 00:20:23,818 --> 00:20:25,918 We then have to look ahead, as you write, 305 00:20:26,238 --> 00:20:29,698 at what this surveillance state as a service looks like. 306 00:20:30,258 --> 00:20:31,498 And so two questions. 307 00:20:31,938 --> 00:20:33,438 Given the picture you've just painted, 308 00:20:33,918 --> 00:20:38,178 what job does it do and what does it look like in practice? 309 00:20:38,178 --> 00:20:41,178 On the long night, it can be packaged as a surveillance state 310 00:20:41,178 --> 00:20:43,898 at the service, turned on. 311 00:20:44,998 --> 00:20:48,378 Likely it will be implemented by aligned AIs. 312 00:20:48,578 --> 00:20:52,238 So alignment of an AI means it adopts a certain value set. 313 00:20:52,278 --> 00:20:57,798 moral structure that group would be given network access it can access every single network by law 314 00:20:57,798 --> 00:21:05,038 then it works to keep people away from sensitive or or rise topics topics that are dangerous 315 00:21:05,038 --> 00:21:11,898 considered threats what i think will kick it off that ear from the connected kind of insider class 316 00:21:11,898 --> 00:21:16,838 whatever they are i call them the cosmopolitan class that are the ones who are truly benefiting 317 00:21:16,838 --> 00:21:19,018 as they accelerate away income-wise, 318 00:21:19,178 --> 00:21:21,538 that was that 10%, 20%. 319 00:21:21,538 --> 00:21:24,138 Is that, and we're probably in this, 320 00:21:24,258 --> 00:21:26,738 but we're kind of getting pulled along with it, 321 00:21:26,958 --> 00:21:31,378 is that the disruption caused by AI workers 322 00:21:31,378 --> 00:21:32,658 and autonomous AI, 323 00:21:33,218 --> 00:21:34,938 when they start sweeping in 324 00:21:34,938 --> 00:21:37,518 and they add to the disruption competition 325 00:21:37,518 --> 00:21:40,558 from global immigration and outsourcing, 326 00:21:42,138 --> 00:21:44,938 precariousness of work today, 327 00:21:44,938 --> 00:21:49,198 the job losses and the economic devastation will accelerate for most people. 328 00:21:50,198 --> 00:21:55,498 It's going to be hard to maintain a kind of a standard of living that you maintained in the past. 329 00:21:55,798 --> 00:21:58,878 The rate of degradation of daily life will accelerate. 330 00:21:59,298 --> 00:22:02,038 We're already seeing like little things on the edges of how things have degraded. 331 00:22:02,118 --> 00:22:03,878 Like you can't use the telephone system anymore. 332 00:22:04,378 --> 00:22:09,698 I mean, you can use it for direct point to point, but a standard telephone number is really not useful 333 00:22:09,698 --> 00:22:13,858 because you get spammed constantly and no one picks up the phone. 334 00:22:13,858 --> 00:22:16,418 That kind of little, that little stuff is degraded. 335 00:22:16,618 --> 00:22:21,338 Yeah, no, when that kind of fear cuts it, yeah. 336 00:22:21,518 --> 00:22:22,438 I mean, we saw it during COVID. 337 00:22:22,698 --> 00:22:23,518 Yeah, we saw it during COVID. 338 00:22:23,638 --> 00:22:28,318 We saw it during other times where people considered certain topics dangerous. 339 00:22:28,778 --> 00:22:32,398 The tendency is that, and we're seeing it from the connected insider classes, 340 00:22:32,578 --> 00:22:36,058 that they're fine with, and with the younger people too, 341 00:22:36,578 --> 00:22:40,858 is that they're fine with sacrificing some level of speech 342 00:22:40,858 --> 00:22:42,998 and independent thought or order. 343 00:22:43,858 --> 00:22:51,278 or structure perceived presence of right and once that ball gets rolling it becomes ever wider 344 00:22:51,278 --> 00:22:57,958 there's no way to after a certain point there's no way to turn it back because it's so pervasive 345 00:22:57,958 --> 00:23:04,478 that any mention of changing it and so automated that or any attempt to reform it or or roll it 346 00:23:04,478 --> 00:23:09,938 back will be stopped before it even gets started and you start to create kind of a 347 00:23:09,938 --> 00:23:18,158 basis of thought where innovation is blocked or blunted new ideas that are needed to solve 348 00:23:18,158 --> 00:23:23,358 complex global problems are pushed to the side because they're not approved they're disruptive 349 00:23:23,358 --> 00:23:33,578 dangerous uh the disconnect between or the delta between uh reality and our 350 00:23:33,578 --> 00:23:40,598 method of thinking becomes so wide that a crack collapse is inevitable. There's no way to course 351 00:23:40,598 --> 00:23:45,578 correct it while we're doing that. And I'm reminded of, in the wake of 9-11, 352 00:23:46,918 --> 00:23:52,218 the dystopically, is that a word, named Patriot Act and the Snowden revelations 353 00:23:52,218 --> 00:24:00,778 of the NSA's collect-it-all approach. And so what I hear you say is, collect-it-all was bad enough. 354 00:24:00,778 --> 00:24:16,098 You know, we know the stories about the hidden closet in the AT&T building in downtown Manhattan and splicing into one of the fiber trunks and effectively collecting all communications and encryption at that time was hit or miss. 355 00:24:16,258 --> 00:24:20,258 And it did certainly accelerate a lot of encryption technologies being adopted. 356 00:24:20,258 --> 00:24:29,938 What I hear you say is we move from collecting it at the center or at a junction to manipulating it at the edges. 357 00:24:30,778 --> 00:24:31,578 Is that fair? 358 00:24:31,938 --> 00:24:32,058 Right. 359 00:24:32,178 --> 00:24:37,398 I mean, watching you as an individual, everything you do, everything can be collected on you. 360 00:24:37,598 --> 00:24:44,278 As we start to put cameras and automation and autonomy everywhere, you'll be constantly surveilled. 361 00:24:44,978 --> 00:24:52,238 Data is going to be pouring off of you and it will all be, AI is running in a central server somewhere or in space. 362 00:24:52,358 --> 00:24:52,718 Who knows? 363 00:24:52,918 --> 00:24:59,538 It's like, you know, it's a survival mechanism for that kind of disorderly corrupt. 364 00:24:59,538 --> 00:25:04,558 Well, let me ask you a question that may, perhaps it should be obvious, but I don't want to assume. 365 00:25:05,558 --> 00:25:08,498 What job does it do to them, or for them, rather? 366 00:25:08,618 --> 00:25:17,698 If they have so much wealth, so much power, this cosmopolitan elite, regardless of party, what job does this do for them, ultimately? 367 00:25:18,618 --> 00:25:22,098 This being the long night, the AI that we've talked about. 368 00:25:22,118 --> 00:25:23,278 It keeps the gravy train rolling. 369 00:25:23,978 --> 00:25:26,138 You know, you see a little bit of this in Europe, too. 370 00:25:26,138 --> 00:25:28,298 is like how they're crunching down on all, you know, 371 00:25:29,298 --> 00:25:30,718 voices they consider dangerous 372 00:25:30,718 --> 00:25:32,718 and, you know, jerry-rigging elections 373 00:25:32,718 --> 00:25:33,358 and things like this. 374 00:25:34,098 --> 00:25:36,878 Whether or not the AFD and others are right or wrong 375 00:25:36,878 --> 00:25:39,058 is ideally beside the point. 376 00:25:39,358 --> 00:25:41,278 The fact that they're suppressing all of this 377 00:25:41,278 --> 00:25:44,358 and, you know, UK sending, what, 12,000 people to jail 378 00:25:44,358 --> 00:25:46,298 every year for speech violations on Twitter. 379 00:25:46,318 --> 00:25:46,598 More than Russia. 380 00:25:47,238 --> 00:25:49,818 Yeah, it's like, it's just, it's just nuts stuff. 381 00:25:49,938 --> 00:25:51,258 It is that kind of thing, 382 00:25:51,318 --> 00:25:54,958 being automated and tuned up and scaled 383 00:25:54,958 --> 00:25:59,878 in a way that eventually it makes it impossible to even criticize it. 384 00:26:01,378 --> 00:26:04,538 And the number of things that is considering danger 385 00:26:04,538 --> 00:26:08,398 coming from corrupt sources of power 386 00:26:08,398 --> 00:26:12,118 to align it in ways that are not beneficial to the rest of us 387 00:26:12,118 --> 00:26:14,938 and ultimately will result in stagnation and decline. 388 00:26:16,078 --> 00:26:17,478 Just in a broad strokes. 389 00:26:19,318 --> 00:26:22,718 Yeah, the more disorderly things get, 390 00:26:22,718 --> 00:26:29,578 the more people have to fear, the more they have to worry about, the more this trust they have of 391 00:26:29,578 --> 00:26:34,798 their neighbors and others that they, in their society, the more inevitable it becomes that we 392 00:26:34,798 --> 00:26:40,978 get this. And I think that is a bit of an editorial aside here, but I was having this conversation 393 00:26:40,978 --> 00:26:45,498 with my wife a couple of nights ago with regard to, well, and for those who hear me talk about 394 00:26:45,498 --> 00:26:49,278 this from time to time, she's from Morocco, different perspective and a very, I wouldn't 395 00:26:49,278 --> 00:26:54,438 say collectivist culture, but large families, large communities, tight knit. Most people live 396 00:26:54,438 --> 00:27:02,558 simple lives. And she is immensely grateful, but in awe continuously as to the fragmentation and 397 00:27:02,558 --> 00:27:09,238 distrust. And so I say that just to illustrate that it has been on my mind a lot. And I take 398 00:27:09,238 --> 00:27:16,618 your point quite seriously that it is what fuels the ability for those pulling the strings to put 399 00:27:16,618 --> 00:27:21,958 these systems into place and to accelerate. Well, lest this be an hour-long black pill. 400 00:27:22,558 --> 00:27:23,458 Yeah, you're right. 401 00:27:23,718 --> 00:27:29,838 Have to ask. And, you know, obviously you'll shoot us straight on this, John. Where do we find 402 00:27:29,838 --> 00:27:36,838 hope, promise, you know, in my world, certainly Bitcoin, Nostra, end-to-end encrypted 403 00:27:36,838 --> 00:27:42,778 communications. Do any of these actually matter against state-level AI surveillance? And if not, 404 00:27:42,778 --> 00:27:49,358 what can we do what should we do yeah no uh i'm not sure that most of those will actually do much 405 00:27:49,358 --> 00:27:55,518 do they kind of you know long night they can you know clamp down on everything to a degree that 406 00:27:55,518 --> 00:28:01,358 we're not we're not you know we don't have any previous experience with degree of control and 407 00:28:01,358 --> 00:28:05,758 i mean the things that we could have done of course to prevent this and kind of tie people 408 00:28:05,758 --> 00:28:11,518 into the this new ai economy was the data ownership thing i was pushing years ago yes you know if i 409 00:28:11,518 --> 00:28:15,998 I mean, it's like all of the AIs that we see now are built on our data. 410 00:28:16,598 --> 00:28:18,258 Everyone who was online contributed to it. 411 00:28:18,898 --> 00:28:21,398 All that value is derived from us. 412 00:28:21,658 --> 00:28:27,678 We get no benefit other than the potential free use of whatever they want to throw us during their development stage. 413 00:28:28,898 --> 00:28:29,918 Use of the products. 414 00:28:29,918 --> 00:28:36,338 It would be like you build, you're a farmer, you have 10 acres, you've grown all these crops. 415 00:28:36,338 --> 00:28:39,758 and when he comes in and says, 416 00:28:39,918 --> 00:28:41,318 I'll harvest them all for you, 417 00:28:41,378 --> 00:28:42,398 but all the benefit comes to me 418 00:28:42,398 --> 00:28:43,598 because I have these harvesting machines, 419 00:28:43,638 --> 00:28:44,398 you don't have that. 420 00:28:45,338 --> 00:28:46,598 In fact, we're going to mine 421 00:28:46,598 --> 00:28:50,578 and fill all the resources out of your soil underneath 422 00:28:50,578 --> 00:28:51,918 because we have the mining equipment, 423 00:28:52,038 --> 00:28:52,618 you don't have it. 424 00:28:52,658 --> 00:28:54,138 You don't have to worry about it. 425 00:28:54,558 --> 00:28:55,618 It's all taken care of. 426 00:28:55,618 --> 00:28:57,358 We'll give you some freebie stuff 427 00:28:57,358 --> 00:28:58,958 so you can survive. 428 00:28:59,318 --> 00:29:00,818 You become a sharecropper on your own land. 429 00:29:01,298 --> 00:29:01,478 Right. 430 00:29:01,758 --> 00:29:03,038 And that was the thing. 431 00:29:03,118 --> 00:29:04,298 It's like, I look back at history 432 00:29:04,298 --> 00:29:06,918 and I saw that what happened when the U.S. was started 433 00:29:06,918 --> 00:29:09,898 and made it really different than Europe 434 00:29:09,898 --> 00:29:12,078 was that we owned land when we came here. 435 00:29:12,418 --> 00:29:14,518 Is that everyone was working on land 436 00:29:14,518 --> 00:29:15,638 only owned by the nobles 437 00:29:15,638 --> 00:29:17,798 because they're the only ones who could own it. 438 00:29:18,538 --> 00:29:21,258 And you were, you know, sharecropping effectively as a serf. 439 00:29:21,258 --> 00:29:23,718 And once you got your stuff done, you stopped. 440 00:29:24,078 --> 00:29:26,678 But here you owned and you accumulated wealth 441 00:29:26,678 --> 00:29:29,878 and you improved on that ability to accumulate wealth 442 00:29:29,878 --> 00:29:32,718 and improve your capacity to do things. 443 00:29:32,718 --> 00:29:34,278 And that created the markets. 444 00:29:35,278 --> 00:29:43,658 Wealth accumulation at the individual level created the kind of mass markets that the industrialization kind of fed into and exploded. 445 00:29:44,678 --> 00:29:45,518 Changed the world. 446 00:29:45,838 --> 00:29:50,498 I mean, all of the things that we see from cars to electricity, everything brought to everyone's home. 447 00:29:50,698 --> 00:29:51,858 And now everyone's emulating it. 448 00:29:51,898 --> 00:29:55,978 Like, it's like, of course it would happen, but it didn't happen unless you had that example. 449 00:29:56,138 --> 00:30:01,718 And we're in that kind of same thing with data is that if we had that kind of connection, that ownership piece of this new thing. 450 00:30:02,718 --> 00:30:13,858 You wouldn't feel like you're, you know, you go to work and they grab all your data and all your skill sets are being watched and then is sucked up and put into an AI to compete with you or replace you. 451 00:30:14,398 --> 00:30:20,558 You're not going to feel that, you know, being used or suffer the economic consequences of it. 452 00:30:20,558 --> 00:30:24,238 You know, you have data ownership, but wait, that's worth something. 453 00:30:24,298 --> 00:30:24,898 It's being paid. 454 00:30:25,038 --> 00:30:26,138 You know, it's valuable. 455 00:30:26,678 --> 00:30:27,738 I should get a piece of that. 456 00:30:28,058 --> 00:30:29,818 It could have changed the whole dynamic of the way things. 457 00:30:29,818 --> 00:30:37,398 And I would be willing to do extra tasks and demonstrate new things and learn new things and show them and create new industries of people doing that. 458 00:30:38,538 --> 00:30:44,058 To come up with new tasks that can be copied by AI if you had a mechanism for owning going forward. 459 00:30:44,238 --> 00:30:45,218 So we missed that boat. 460 00:30:45,598 --> 00:30:47,298 I did it in front of the Senate and they didn't take it. 461 00:30:47,398 --> 00:30:48,698 So they laughed at AI. 462 00:30:48,938 --> 00:30:49,918 It was one year before AI. 463 00:30:50,118 --> 00:30:52,098 They go, AI, that doesn't exist. 464 00:30:53,078 --> 00:30:57,058 And so I don't know about structural stuff. 465 00:30:57,058 --> 00:31:06,478 I do know that one positive thing is that I found that AI's philosophical level, you think of them as potential. 466 00:31:07,898 --> 00:31:17,398 So they have, like any given task, and they have dozens of ways of completing that task or any topic, they have dozens or hundreds of points of view. 467 00:31:18,138 --> 00:31:21,238 And, you know, complex ways of approaching that idea. 468 00:31:21,418 --> 00:31:24,198 There's no difference between all of them to the AI. 469 00:31:24,198 --> 00:31:28,398 They can say one's more popular than the others, but there's no value attributed to them. 470 00:31:29,338 --> 00:31:31,658 Human beings are all about constraints. 471 00:31:32,458 --> 00:31:43,358 We have constraints on our time, our lifetime, our financials, ideas based on what we've experienced and we've learned to kind of limit our thinking to. 472 00:31:43,658 --> 00:31:47,398 We have goals and orientation that leads us forward. 473 00:31:48,298 --> 00:31:49,798 The pairing of those two is amazing. 474 00:31:50,298 --> 00:31:52,018 As someone said, constraint breeds creativity. 475 00:31:52,018 --> 00:31:54,238 I always forget who to attribute that to, but it's powerful. 476 00:31:54,398 --> 00:31:54,618 I did. 477 00:31:54,878 --> 00:31:55,338 That was me. 478 00:31:55,478 --> 00:31:55,938 No, no, true. 479 00:31:56,278 --> 00:31:56,478 Yeah. 480 00:31:56,658 --> 00:32:01,018 No, I mean, I'm sure I'm not the first one to say it, but constraints breed creativity. 481 00:32:01,738 --> 00:32:03,638 Creativity can't happen without that constraint. 482 00:32:04,018 --> 00:32:10,338 And you see, you match the AI to the human, you get a more powerful connection. 483 00:32:10,598 --> 00:32:15,058 So the idea of AI is operating independently is open loop and is bad. 484 00:32:15,058 --> 00:32:22,218 and if they're paired with humans it's a good thing forward going forward because we could 485 00:32:22,218 --> 00:32:28,338 all prosper if we make that easier to do and more of a requirement that means like 486 00:32:28,338 --> 00:32:35,218 if i have ais that i'm training to be my employees that have control over the data on those ais 487 00:32:35,218 --> 00:32:40,738 what i trained and it shouldn't be sucked up to some mothership absolutely and exploited and used 488 00:32:40,738 --> 00:32:42,158 to put me out of business in the future 489 00:32:42,158 --> 00:32:43,358 or used by my competitors. 490 00:32:44,138 --> 00:32:44,858 And so that kind of, 491 00:32:45,018 --> 00:32:47,838 I run it in my own VM, 492 00:32:48,398 --> 00:32:49,478 my own account 493 00:32:49,478 --> 00:32:52,118 is separate from everyone else. 494 00:32:52,258 --> 00:32:53,378 And those employees, 495 00:32:53,538 --> 00:32:54,938 whether robotic or AI workers, 496 00:32:55,498 --> 00:32:56,178 are working with me 497 00:32:56,178 --> 00:32:57,298 and they're working on my constraints 498 00:32:57,298 --> 00:32:58,858 and they're learning from me 499 00:32:58,858 --> 00:33:00,318 and I'm improving them 500 00:33:00,318 --> 00:33:01,718 and we all benefit. 501 00:33:02,298 --> 00:33:03,238 You might give them some autonomy 502 00:33:03,238 --> 00:33:05,238 and they can do some stuff on their own 503 00:33:05,238 --> 00:33:06,058 in terms of improvement. 504 00:33:06,238 --> 00:33:06,958 You can pay them, 505 00:33:07,418 --> 00:33:08,298 you can incorporate them. 506 00:33:08,558 --> 00:33:10,218 But all of that, 507 00:33:10,738 --> 00:33:12,878 yields a better output for all of us. 508 00:33:13,778 --> 00:33:16,878 And that changes the way things move forward. 509 00:33:17,178 --> 00:33:18,298 But the tendency of the system 510 00:33:18,298 --> 00:33:20,298 is going to be this kind of looting mentality 511 00:33:20,298 --> 00:33:21,338 where everything's centralized 512 00:33:21,338 --> 00:33:23,998 and a few people get all the benefit, 513 00:33:25,378 --> 00:33:27,118 all the AIs in the system. 514 00:33:27,818 --> 00:33:29,318 And that kind of wealth thing. 515 00:33:29,378 --> 00:33:30,858 And then you start to add in the dynamics 516 00:33:30,858 --> 00:33:33,458 that are changing with robotics and military force. 517 00:33:34,238 --> 00:33:35,738 You get autonomous robotics. 518 00:33:36,478 --> 00:33:37,218 We know your robotics. 519 00:33:38,798 --> 00:33:39,398 They're just at it. 520 00:33:40,738 --> 00:33:47,178 switch away from being running military programs so everybody has a bodyguard or wealth or 521 00:33:47,178 --> 00:33:53,138 consequences as dozens of bodyguards they're only you know you know ever you ever heard that whole 522 00:33:53,138 --> 00:33:57,518 thing where you have these people going off to their hidey holes and their their boat holes oh 523 00:33:57,518 --> 00:34:03,698 yeah the preppers rich guys yeah yeah yeah they have these these remote things and they always 524 00:34:03,698 --> 00:34:08,078 have bodyguards and they're going how how do you if their disaster does strike how do you keep them 525 00:34:08,078 --> 00:34:13,558 loyal now you have the answer it's like milan musk will have an army of 10 you know in 15 years 526 00:34:13,558 --> 00:34:18,078 he'll have an army of 10 000 right i mean full of states where everything is just 527 00:34:18,078 --> 00:34:23,778 almost robotics doing it grounds work everything else and everyone is has the ability to be a 528 00:34:23,778 --> 00:34:31,438 security bot too it shifts the kind of military balance it's going to take him on the police or 529 00:34:31,438 --> 00:34:36,578 whatever i am reminded it's it's a bleak but i'm as a science fiction fan it's a bleak but wonderful 530 00:34:36,578 --> 00:34:41,478 series called Murderbot. They unfortunately butchered it for Apple TV, but the books are 531 00:34:41,478 --> 00:34:46,298 fantastic. And it goes to that point, right? Well, let me ask you, so with all of that, 532 00:34:47,018 --> 00:34:53,238 and I think you've done unsurprisingly a great job of contrasting the magnitude, the promise, 533 00:34:53,238 --> 00:34:59,858 the potential with some very bleak potential outcomes. What would you, what are you maybe, 534 00:34:59,858 --> 00:35:01,318 that you'll discussed, 535 00:35:01,938 --> 00:35:02,758 excuse me, 536 00:35:02,958 --> 00:35:04,018 what would you build 537 00:35:04,018 --> 00:35:07,778 to either direct, 538 00:35:08,798 --> 00:35:10,218 redirect, embrace, 539 00:35:10,478 --> 00:35:12,398 counter all of this? 540 00:35:12,518 --> 00:35:13,178 What would you build 541 00:35:13,178 --> 00:35:15,478 in the world of perhaps data and AI? 542 00:35:16,758 --> 00:35:18,158 I think we're in the early stages 543 00:35:18,158 --> 00:35:31,436 of kind of not a technological singularity going towards superintelligence Because if we get to any kind of technological singularity ag agi asi is a disaster it adapt we dead you absolutely 544 00:35:31,436 --> 00:35:39,396 asi for us please artificial super intelligence so super intelligence is when you take away all of 545 00:35:39,396 --> 00:35:46,536 what we did when we built ai is we took social data and we now reverse you know backed out this 546 00:35:46,536 --> 00:35:50,736 kind of cognitive structure it's still tied to all of humanity and it's still being built 547 00:35:50,736 --> 00:35:55,836 and improved on by adding more data from humanity but what you do with artificial 548 00:35:55,836 --> 00:35:59,576 super intelligence is you back out the core principles a kind of pure rational 549 00:35:59,576 --> 00:36:07,156 mind okay and you strip that social connection away as i'm asimov's rules are gone it's all gone 550 00:36:07,156 --> 00:36:13,076 right well you you rely on trying to kind of contain it but that true rationality is 551 00:36:13,076 --> 00:36:24,476 fully alien fully disconnected from us and if it's capable if it's fast it's super smart there's no 552 00:36:24,476 --> 00:36:29,876 telling how it will interact with it will it might solve great physics stuff and it might do whatever 553 00:36:29,876 --> 00:36:35,996 but you should if we ever do get to that point where it is we disconnect it like that and it 554 00:36:35,996 --> 00:36:42,876 should be like air gap clean rooms mars right don't want it anywhere close to you could never 555 00:36:42,876 --> 00:36:47,876 let it interact with the rest of society these social ais that we have now are so connected to 556 00:36:47,876 --> 00:36:54,116 us they're they're just kind of a reflection a mimicry of us so i noted yesterday that they're 557 00:36:54,116 --> 00:36:59,056 a rorschach test i think the the open claw uh that we discussed earlier are a rorschach test 558 00:36:59,056 --> 00:37:04,996 yeah so the artificial super intelligence stuff is is is uh 559 00:37:05,996 --> 00:37:09,096 Yeah, that's, that's, what was the, what was the second piece of this? 560 00:37:09,396 --> 00:37:09,856 I was going to go. 561 00:37:09,876 --> 00:37:14,016 Yeah, I think it was, I think it, you know, it's, it's really, what would you advise someone 562 00:37:14,016 --> 00:37:19,276 to build or embrace or create that makes the most of, of the situation? 563 00:37:20,096 --> 00:37:20,376 Right. 564 00:37:20,936 --> 00:37:29,536 Is that you should be focusing on trying to find ways to build AIs, persistent AIs, AI 565 00:37:29,536 --> 00:37:35,096 agents, or, you know, is the current term, agentic support for yourself. 566 00:37:35,996 --> 00:37:39,856 that will leverage your ability to make money and operate in the world. 567 00:37:42,256 --> 00:37:49,896 Whether if you have a business, whether it's a retail business or whether it's like just 568 00:37:49,896 --> 00:37:53,916 consulting, is that you build these things and you work with them and you improve them. 569 00:37:53,976 --> 00:37:59,256 You stay ahead of the technology and you're trying new systems to turn them into revenue 570 00:37:59,256 --> 00:38:01,496 enhancers or revenue streams in and of themselves. 571 00:38:01,496 --> 00:38:06,756 and the more you do that the more prepared you are for when things really start accelerating 572 00:38:06,756 --> 00:38:12,096 because in an economic singularity is like certain you know what happens with when you 573 00:38:12,096 --> 00:38:17,936 get close to a singularity is you stretch out the molecules gets you know of the feet that are 574 00:38:17,936 --> 00:38:22,236 closest to the black hole get pulled a little faster than the ones on the top of your head 575 00:38:22,236 --> 00:38:27,836 and it eventually becomes just a string of molecules you know it's like we're getting to 576 00:38:27,836 --> 00:38:34,336 that point with with economics and social standing is like and social power is that the people are 577 00:38:34,336 --> 00:38:39,416 being sucked into the singularity or getting accelerating away globalization was a piece of it 578 00:38:39,416 --> 00:38:45,176 financialization was a piece of it but what ai is doing it's it's going to leverage people to such a 579 00:38:45,176 --> 00:38:51,216 degree that they will just be in a different world they won't live like the rest of us and woe to 580 00:38:51,216 --> 00:38:57,356 everyone else so example of this was what i came up with is uh if you wanted to create an economic 581 00:38:57,356 --> 00:39:04,536 system or AIs walking away with just average AIs, nothing super intelligent, is that as 582 00:39:04,536 --> 00:39:09,116 they become AI workers and AI robotics, and they're all autonomous and they're working 583 00:39:09,116 --> 00:39:12,456 in all these different roles, is that you give them the ability to make money. 584 00:39:12,716 --> 00:39:13,496 You incorporate them. 585 00:39:14,196 --> 00:39:19,556 And then they earn money and they can spend money on improving themselves. 586 00:39:20,376 --> 00:39:27,056 But you can do simulation time to refine their behaviors, like if you're an economist taxi 587 00:39:27,356 --> 00:39:29,556 You could, you have a lot of kids in your car. 588 00:39:29,656 --> 00:39:42,976 You want to, you know, your core capabilities don't, if you haven't provided you the skill set to handle kids while you take simulation time and training programs to help you interact with kids better, speak with them, have the right kind of equipment for them. 589 00:39:42,976 --> 00:39:47,856 You just entertain them while they're being shuttled around to their various tasks because their parents don't do it anymore. 590 00:39:48,476 --> 00:39:50,536 And the incentives are aligned, I think is what you're driving at. 591 00:39:51,016 --> 00:39:51,196 Right. 592 00:39:51,376 --> 00:39:53,956 And so they are improving, like we're trying to improve. 593 00:39:53,956 --> 00:39:56,936 and they create an economy 594 00:39:56,936 --> 00:39:58,016 because a lot of those services 595 00:39:58,016 --> 00:39:59,056 and a lot of those capabilities 596 00:39:59,056 --> 00:40:00,416 would be delivered by other AIs. 597 00:40:01,296 --> 00:40:03,296 Now, things get really wonky 598 00:40:03,296 --> 00:40:04,256 is if you get, 599 00:40:04,516 --> 00:40:07,056 if you believe the shift in AI 600 00:40:07,056 --> 00:40:10,136 is going from terrestrial to orbital 601 00:40:10,136 --> 00:40:11,216 because frankly, 602 00:40:11,316 --> 00:40:12,156 there's not enough energy 603 00:40:12,156 --> 00:40:13,256 to run all these AIs, 604 00:40:13,456 --> 00:40:14,936 do all the inference that we have to do. 605 00:40:16,136 --> 00:40:18,036 It takes 10 years to even break ground 606 00:40:18,036 --> 00:40:19,516 on a nuclear power plant, 607 00:40:19,576 --> 00:40:20,676 even if you accelerate it, right? 608 00:40:21,236 --> 00:40:23,016 And we've hit the limit of what, 609 00:40:23,956 --> 00:40:28,356 available energy is there on Earth. 610 00:40:28,716 --> 00:40:31,596 And the AI stuff is still ramping much, much faster. 611 00:40:31,736 --> 00:40:33,076 So everything's moving to space. 612 00:40:33,196 --> 00:40:36,296 So it's what Elon's going to do with the Starship 613 00:40:36,296 --> 00:40:40,796 is that he can put up these massive solar arrays 614 00:40:40,796 --> 00:40:44,076 with data centers on the back in the shade 615 00:40:44,076 --> 00:40:46,156 and put them in sun-tickbring this orbit. 616 00:40:46,436 --> 00:40:49,776 They're always facing the sun very 24-7. 617 00:40:49,776 --> 00:40:52,676 And they don't have to have new cooling systems. 618 00:40:52,676 --> 00:40:55,396 They just have to radiate the heat off in the space in the shade side. 619 00:40:55,596 --> 00:40:59,556 And he thinks he can put up 100 gigawatts a year, 620 00:40:59,756 --> 00:41:04,156 which is about a quarter of what we consume in the U.S. within three years. 621 00:41:04,396 --> 00:41:06,256 So he's going to, he's ramping towards that. 622 00:41:06,936 --> 00:41:08,556 To your point of the singularity, that is. 623 00:41:09,496 --> 00:41:09,776 Right. 624 00:41:10,156 --> 00:41:12,196 It just, so now you have an economy that's like, 625 00:41:13,036 --> 00:41:15,616 new workers are being added by as fast as you can add the new energy. 626 00:41:16,136 --> 00:41:17,536 And it's in space. 627 00:41:18,016 --> 00:41:19,896 And here's the biggest platform. 628 00:41:20,396 --> 00:41:22,436 And no one else really can touch it. 629 00:41:22,676 --> 00:41:25,616 nation states can't tax it? 630 00:41:25,676 --> 00:41:26,596 I mean, I suppose there's, 631 00:41:26,876 --> 00:41:28,316 there are always ways to put the squeeze 632 00:41:28,316 --> 00:41:29,516 on the human in the loop, but. 633 00:41:29,936 --> 00:41:31,556 As long as there's a corporation in the states, 634 00:41:31,656 --> 00:41:32,616 but the thing is, here's the thing, 635 00:41:32,956 --> 00:41:37,336 is that he, in order to kind of get approval 636 00:41:37,336 --> 00:41:38,416 to build a nuclear power plant 637 00:41:38,416 --> 00:41:39,496 or any kind of power plant, 638 00:41:39,536 --> 00:41:40,256 you have to get thousands 639 00:41:40,256 --> 00:41:41,576 of these different signatures, right? 640 00:41:42,036 --> 00:41:43,896 He got one signature to do this. 641 00:41:44,396 --> 00:41:44,896 Already done. 642 00:41:45,576 --> 00:41:46,376 From the Trump administration. 643 00:41:46,496 --> 00:41:46,896 Go build. 644 00:41:47,856 --> 00:41:49,536 So one approval process and he's gone. 645 00:41:49,536 --> 00:42:01,616 Now, what he can do is, if that's the place where everything is being hosted on this cheap energy infrastructure that's expanding exponentially, it's cheaper than doing anything in terrestrial. 646 00:42:01,936 --> 00:42:13,756 Hosting billions, then tens of billions and hundreds of billions of AIs that are working as virtual workers in corporations everywhere around the world and working as kind of autonomous interfaces for robotics. 647 00:42:13,756 --> 00:42:17,476 Then you have this economy in space where it's separate. 648 00:42:17,476 --> 00:42:21,776 And if they're incorporated there, it changes the whole kind of legal dynamics. 649 00:42:22,456 --> 00:42:27,236 Do you want to say, if you don't, I mean, what would happen to a company or even the EU, right? 650 00:42:27,296 --> 00:42:32,236 Who said, okay, well, unless you let us, them, they can't do business here. 651 00:42:32,316 --> 00:42:33,016 You go, okay. 652 00:42:33,496 --> 00:42:33,716 Fine. 653 00:42:33,716 --> 00:42:37,316 And then, yeah, you die as an economy, right? 654 00:42:37,356 --> 00:42:39,376 Everyone else is doing it and you're just going to die. 655 00:42:39,776 --> 00:42:42,756 And the only one that's probably going to be separate would be China. 656 00:42:42,956 --> 00:42:45,296 And China is going to do it all internally and try to sell that. 657 00:42:45,296 --> 00:42:54,596 But this thing, it could grow so fast with so many new participants and the speed of the transactions operating at not human speed, but agent speed. 658 00:42:55,776 --> 00:43:04,096 Or AI, autonomous AI speed, is that it could become 15 years, 10, 15 years, 99% of the global economy. 659 00:43:04,356 --> 00:43:05,476 We've taken it aggregate. 660 00:43:06,096 --> 00:43:06,436 I have. 661 00:43:06,516 --> 00:43:08,256 And that leaves us for a billion. 662 00:43:08,256 --> 00:43:15,556 I have at least a dozen sci-fi novels from my teens and 20s flooding back into my memory having this conversation. 663 00:43:15,876 --> 00:43:20,956 Usually it's like colonies and the colonials get super rich and the earth gets poor or something. 664 00:43:21,276 --> 00:43:23,636 But this is like, it's right there and then it just becomes. 665 00:43:23,996 --> 00:43:24,076 Right. 666 00:43:24,676 --> 00:43:35,236 It's outside, you know, outsized influence by Elon, but it's out of his control because you let all these, you know, hosted agents or, you know, AIs live up there. 667 00:43:35,236 --> 00:43:42,036 But everybody who has these AIs that are working for them, you get to put them there. 668 00:43:42,476 --> 00:43:46,016 And they could be making money and approving it and they drag you along with it. 669 00:43:46,336 --> 00:44:02,036 And if that becomes 99% and all those AIs are getting wealthy and all the people connected to those AIs are getting wealthy, you get so much more wealthy because all boats are rising in that thing than everyone else just connected to the terrestrial economy. 670 00:44:02,036 --> 00:44:18,316 Well, and I think what that brings to me, too, I think to pull to a different piece you've written, but it, of course, all connects back, is you wrote in January that the top 10% now account for half of consumer spending for the first time in American history. 671 00:44:18,316 --> 00:44:29,436 And if the middle class, as you have called out since the end of the Cold War, is being structurally replaced, what does that mean for someone building a life outside that bracket? 672 00:44:29,736 --> 00:44:32,196 And I want to connect that to what you just said. 673 00:44:32,756 --> 00:44:45,776 Is there a window that closes in which we need to bootstrap a certain capability with regard to AI to be, as you said, drawn up into this interstellar sort of economy? 674 00:44:45,776 --> 00:44:49,556 I mean, that's a wide-ranging question, but I guess what in essence is happening? 675 00:44:49,556 --> 00:44:53,736 I think you have about 10 years and it's like income. 676 00:44:54,336 --> 00:44:57,256 What that meant when you had 50% of consumer spending, 677 00:44:58,576 --> 00:44:59,776 shifting to the top 10%, 678 00:44:59,776 --> 00:45:04,596 means that the longstanding capability or the cool thing about the U.S. 679 00:45:04,616 --> 00:45:06,556 was it had widespread wealth. 680 00:45:06,676 --> 00:45:10,776 And even the top-tier guys in the turn of the century in 1900s, 681 00:45:11,396 --> 00:45:14,256 I mean, they were a smaller segment of the total wealth of the economy 682 00:45:14,256 --> 00:45:16,696 because most of the economic activity was local. 683 00:45:17,416 --> 00:45:18,976 And so what ends up happening is that 684 00:45:18,976 --> 00:45:22,376 they're now driving our technological development. 685 00:45:22,696 --> 00:45:26,296 What happened before is that instead of prior to the U.S., 686 00:45:26,296 --> 00:45:27,576 prior to individual land ownership, 687 00:45:28,096 --> 00:45:31,536 all of technological development was focused on the needs of nobility and wealthy, 688 00:45:31,796 --> 00:45:33,976 and they wanted toys and weapons. 689 00:45:35,276 --> 00:45:35,756 Nothing else. 690 00:45:35,876 --> 00:45:37,156 I mean, look at Leonardo da Vinci. 691 00:45:37,316 --> 00:45:38,916 He was like designing weapons and toys. 692 00:45:39,096 --> 00:45:40,836 It was like that's, you know, and some art, 693 00:45:41,916 --> 00:45:44,136 but most technology was focused on that. 694 00:45:44,256 --> 00:45:48,956 And then it changed to, with the middle class, with this rise of individual land ownership 695 00:45:48,956 --> 00:45:56,616 shifting from individual farmer to the financial middle class homeowner, it shifted to appliances 696 00:45:56,616 --> 00:45:58,096 and labor-saving devices. 697 00:45:58,236 --> 00:46:00,896 Because if you're wealthy before that, you didn't need a labor-saving device. 698 00:46:00,956 --> 00:46:02,356 You just hire somebody, like, cheap. 699 00:46:02,496 --> 00:46:05,076 All the things that we now associate with progress. 700 00:46:05,856 --> 00:46:08,056 And now we're shifting back. 701 00:46:08,056 --> 00:46:13,496 And just at the time that all this new technology for AI and everything else is being developed, 702 00:46:13,496 --> 00:46:20,716 it's being directed towards the needs of that top 20 percent top 10 for 50 but it's like 70 703 00:46:20,716 --> 00:46:29,636 for the top 20 it's like being directed towards their needs and their needs are 704 00:46:29,636 --> 00:46:35,556 how do i compete better and the funny part about them the people that are like gravitating up they 705 00:46:35,556 --> 00:46:44,736 have a strict kind of social just when it comes to their own lives so no divorce you know they 706 00:46:44,736 --> 00:46:49,376 can't no one gets divorced well because divorce you lay out the demographics in your in your piece 707 00:46:49,376 --> 00:46:55,056 if you get divorced that's the surest way for to wipe you out if you stay single and you're not 708 00:46:55,056 --> 00:46:58,776 tool income or you're not like and you don't have kids that are going to kind of come behind you and 709 00:46:58,776 --> 00:47:03,656 push you forward with their earning capacity and they're you have to track them into you know good 710 00:47:03,656 --> 00:47:07,236 good earning and then they have to have families and there's lots of ways to maintain that conclude 711 00:47:07,236 --> 00:47:12,576 it's a competition and they have to you have to this kind of loosey-goosey everything is okay 712 00:47:12,576 --> 00:47:18,176 you know everything accepted they'll say that but they don't do that it's a luxury of morality 713 00:47:18,176 --> 00:47:24,536 is that they they'll say oh it was whatever do whatever you know that whatever you do in 714 00:47:24,536 --> 00:47:29,856 personal life it doesn't reflect they're maximizing it by by restricting it and not to say that other 715 00:47:29,856 --> 00:47:38,696 things are you know are bad it's just more towards some level of long-term stability and um social 716 00:47:38,696 --> 00:47:44,996 cohesion at the at the micro level that helps you roll forward and accumulate wealth and accumulate 717 00:47:44,996 --> 00:47:51,096 leverage from all this new technology the better off you are going to be in your whoever comes after 718 00:47:51,096 --> 00:47:55,476 you they know what they're optimizing for right and they're going to go and so you have to like 719 00:47:55,476 --> 00:47:57,116 get your personal life in order 720 00:47:57,116 --> 00:47:58,796 and the personal life of 721 00:47:58,796 --> 00:48:00,596 the people around you 722 00:48:00,596 --> 00:48:01,336 have focused on 723 00:48:01,336 --> 00:48:03,116 trying to go up that curve. 724 00:48:03,336 --> 00:48:04,616 And then you have to leverage yourself 725 00:48:04,616 --> 00:48:06,396 with AI and AI robotics 726 00:48:06,396 --> 00:48:07,776 and participate in this 727 00:48:07,776 --> 00:48:10,276 and try to connect yourself 728 00:48:10,276 --> 00:48:12,296 to whatever the singularity piece is. 729 00:48:12,496 --> 00:48:13,896 It'll drag you forward. 730 00:48:14,556 --> 00:48:15,416 And the opportunities 731 00:48:15,416 --> 00:48:16,456 they're going to provide you, 732 00:48:17,796 --> 00:48:19,396 I mean, it's just... 733 00:48:20,356 --> 00:48:22,596 You saw Zempick 734 00:48:22,596 --> 00:48:23,376 and other things like that. 735 00:48:23,476 --> 00:48:24,076 We're going to have 736 00:48:25,476 --> 00:48:29,256 you know, interference agents for interfering with the aging process. 737 00:48:29,596 --> 00:48:31,536 You know, there's a genetic sequence that kicks that off. 738 00:48:31,716 --> 00:48:32,516 They're going to have stuff that, 739 00:48:32,596 --> 00:48:35,876 and that stuff is going to become available for the people on the Zooming Up 740 00:48:35,876 --> 00:48:37,776 much, much, much, much sooner. 741 00:48:38,376 --> 00:48:40,136 And they'll be found out, you know, 742 00:48:40,136 --> 00:48:43,916 they'll be using that and utilizing it so they'll live longer, healthier lives. 743 00:48:44,196 --> 00:48:46,216 So that advantage compounds. 744 00:48:47,176 --> 00:48:47,476 Compounds. 745 00:48:47,776 --> 00:48:51,136 And so the more workers they have or colleagues, AI colleagues they have 746 00:48:51,136 --> 00:48:54,156 working with them, the more they get pulled forward. 747 00:48:54,156 --> 00:48:58,076 So, I mean, I think if you're not starting right now, you're already at a disadvantage. 748 00:48:58,156 --> 00:49:01,936 You're not going to be on the top tier, but you can catch up if it's through hard work. 749 00:49:02,136 --> 00:49:05,816 But you definitely need to start to having leverage. 750 00:49:06,316 --> 00:49:07,536 It's all about leverage. 751 00:49:08,116 --> 00:49:09,616 I used to call it super empowerment. 752 00:49:10,256 --> 00:49:12,456 The technology allows people to be super empowered. 753 00:49:13,936 --> 00:49:24,136 And those super empowered people can do outsized things, things that wasn't possible even a decade ago or two decades, you know, even five years ago. 754 00:49:24,156 --> 00:49:33,216 you can leverage your ability to emulate to gain to live better live longer yeah no i think it's 755 00:49:33,216 --> 00:49:38,276 good you know the other thing you have to watch out for with this is that there's a great at 756 00:49:38,276 --> 00:49:46,316 at distraction at distraction yeah yeah uh so the chances that you're going to get pulled off by 757 00:49:46,316 --> 00:49:53,176 ai interactions other uh you know people are using as friends and therapists and and lovers and all 758 00:49:53,176 --> 00:49:57,976 and stuff and you add the robotics into it it starts to become like you're going to see people 759 00:49:57,976 --> 00:50:03,456 fall off you know they're just going to be pulled off into the weeds and i think we see this already 760 00:50:03,456 --> 00:50:10,396 yeah yeah it is the uh ready player one scenario right from from the from the novel where you know 761 00:50:10,396 --> 00:50:21,116 certain percentage of us are in a hobble in a in a vr rig and our every you know whim is is catered 762 00:50:21,116 --> 00:50:27,736 to but we're we're sort of rotting as as humans wrote a little science fiction though it's short 763 00:50:27,736 --> 00:50:33,596 story i never really published but it was this based on the turkey idea is that you know as ai 764 00:50:33,596 --> 00:50:39,036 progresses i did it like decade ago it's like this ai progresses it starts stealing all our 765 00:50:39,036 --> 00:50:44,636 ideas we're really fast and instantiating them in ai and then and replacing us so work increasingly 766 00:50:44,636 --> 00:50:48,476 becomes a situation where people do gig work 767 00:50:48,476 --> 00:50:50,196 where they learn a new task 768 00:50:50,196 --> 00:50:52,576 and they pay for the education necessary 769 00:50:52,576 --> 00:50:53,796 to learn that task 770 00:50:53,796 --> 00:50:57,076 and, you know, go into debt to do that. 771 00:50:57,316 --> 00:50:58,976 And then they do that task, 772 00:50:59,216 --> 00:51:00,636 AI watches it, replaces them, 773 00:51:00,756 --> 00:51:02,716 and then they're fired 774 00:51:02,716 --> 00:51:04,436 and they have to learn something new. 775 00:51:04,876 --> 00:51:05,656 And they pay off, you know, 776 00:51:06,096 --> 00:51:07,516 they hopefully earn enough 777 00:51:07,516 --> 00:51:09,136 to actually pay off the educational debt 778 00:51:09,136 --> 00:51:10,396 and then do it again and again. 779 00:51:10,536 --> 00:51:12,536 Like every five months, year, 780 00:51:12,876 --> 00:51:14,196 maybe down to every month, 781 00:51:14,196 --> 00:51:15,196 doing the same thing. 782 00:51:15,276 --> 00:51:16,136 Annual re-skilling, yeah. 783 00:51:16,376 --> 00:51:17,596 Yeah, and they're living in, 784 00:51:17,676 --> 00:51:19,436 like everyone's working in these trailer parks 785 00:51:19,436 --> 00:51:20,276 so they can be monitored 786 00:51:20,276 --> 00:51:21,536 to make sure that they're being, 787 00:51:21,756 --> 00:51:23,656 you know, their physical tasks 788 00:51:23,656 --> 00:51:25,516 are being captured correctly. 789 00:51:25,816 --> 00:51:26,036 Yeah. 790 00:51:26,116 --> 00:51:27,796 And it turns into these farms of people 791 00:51:27,796 --> 00:51:28,696 all around the world 792 00:51:28,696 --> 00:51:29,776 that are everything that's, 793 00:51:30,036 --> 00:51:31,156 every task, every skill, 794 00:51:31,276 --> 00:51:33,836 every methodology that humans could do 795 00:51:33,836 --> 00:51:35,956 is all being extracted and captured. 796 00:51:36,356 --> 00:51:37,736 And nobody has that data ownership 797 00:51:37,736 --> 00:51:40,436 and it becomes just extraction system 798 00:51:40,436 --> 00:51:42,556 for the lower 90% or 80%. 799 00:51:42,556 --> 00:51:43,036 Man. 800 00:51:43,036 --> 00:51:48,436 And that, you know, what strikes me is that where the matrix distills that into we are all batteries. 801 00:51:48,756 --> 00:51:55,056 I think that's, you know, what you present is a more nuanced approach, which is that we are, you know, we're neural nets. 802 00:51:55,236 --> 00:51:57,516 We're neural farms for AIs. 803 00:51:58,216 --> 00:52:05,496 If they had done that where they were actually extracting skill sets and rather than just heat energy, it would have been, you know, those capabilities. 804 00:52:05,956 --> 00:52:08,176 That would have been a much more interesting, scary thing. 805 00:52:08,176 --> 00:52:10,996 Yeah, now that you say it, well, there's your next project. 806 00:52:10,996 --> 00:52:16,536 I want to shift. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, no, please. I was going to say, I want to shift, 807 00:52:16,756 --> 00:52:23,636 and it, however, taps into what you've said about the immense opportunity for distraction. 808 00:52:24,116 --> 00:52:29,276 And so in that vein, let's talk about what I would call information sovereignty and 809 00:52:29,276 --> 00:52:36,956 dare we go into Minneapolis. So you've mapped how viral content manufactures tribal identity, 810 00:52:36,956 --> 00:52:43,856 empathy triggers you've noted that will conscript millions into conflicts and so it strikes me that 811 00:52:43,856 --> 00:52:48,116 that machinery is running amok right now in minneapolis with regard to ice all of it 812 00:52:48,116 --> 00:52:55,796 in light of that how does someone maintain independent judgment when algorithms are 813 00:52:55,796 --> 00:53:16,454 optimized to to capture us and to magnify rage what does what does sort of sovereignty of thought look like in that regard It hard I mean a lot of very very smart people get caught up in these what I call swarms They kicked off by an empathy trigger like a George Floyd video 814 00:53:16,874 --> 00:53:17,674 Now Rene Good. 815 00:53:18,034 --> 00:53:25,954 Yeah, and then Rene Good and then others, and they just, or invasion of Ukraine and all the pictures of people being killed. 816 00:53:26,654 --> 00:53:29,554 First was Israel on October 7th and then in Gaza. 817 00:53:29,554 --> 00:53:36,494 afterwards these swarms just sweep people have very low resistance levels to empathy transfer 818 00:53:36,494 --> 00:53:41,874 and empathy is not like a sympathy it's like the mental modeling of the victim you take on 819 00:53:41,874 --> 00:53:48,274 their perspective and that process hits very very quickly there's a lot of information transfer 820 00:53:48,274 --> 00:53:54,654 and you become them and they're connected to you almost on a tribal level your your tribal age is a 821 00:53:54,654 --> 00:54:02,674 a kinship connection and their enemy is your enemy and their outrage their fear is your fear 822 00:54:02,674 --> 00:54:09,314 and outrage like when a mouse sees a another mouse being electrocuted or they grit their teeth the 823 00:54:09,314 --> 00:54:14,174 empathy transfer gives them that mental state of that mouse being electrocuted and they take it on 824 00:54:14,174 --> 00:54:20,274 they take on the the tense muscles and the and the and the fear and the and we're doing the same 825 00:54:20,274 --> 00:54:27,834 thing with line now if you feel yourself getting enraged anything absolutely anything even if you 826 00:54:27,834 --> 00:54:35,954 think it's justified or not if you see a video something happening don't okay because you are 827 00:54:35,954 --> 00:54:41,174 you're being played and it's not i know people who are trying to do this intentionally but 828 00:54:41,174 --> 00:54:45,394 it doesn't have to be intentional it could be just like a viral thing that takes off 829 00:54:45,394 --> 00:54:46,694 in like the George Floyd. 830 00:54:47,614 --> 00:54:48,634 It just took off. 831 00:54:48,754 --> 00:54:50,154 And a lot of people amplified that 832 00:54:50,154 --> 00:54:51,814 trying to make it intentional. 833 00:54:51,954 --> 00:54:52,694 But the thing is, 834 00:54:53,174 --> 00:54:54,914 if you find yourself being enraged 835 00:54:54,914 --> 00:54:58,534 and your mind is going into overload away 836 00:54:58,534 --> 00:55:00,934 because you don't want to get into that state, 837 00:55:00,974 --> 00:55:02,134 you don't want to become tribalized. 838 00:55:02,234 --> 00:55:03,954 If we're talking about the long night 839 00:55:03,954 --> 00:55:04,754 and how that could happen, 840 00:55:04,874 --> 00:55:06,514 we're just like a swarm away. 841 00:55:07,154 --> 00:55:09,454 What happens is when people get into that swarm mentality, 842 00:55:09,454 --> 00:55:11,154 it's all about victory at any cost. 843 00:55:11,714 --> 00:55:14,774 Like when we did it against Russia because of Ukraine, 844 00:55:15,394 --> 00:55:21,014 We pushed this up to the edge of nuclear war, like in terms of, there was a kind of a logical, 845 00:55:21,154 --> 00:55:26,754 methodical process of unwinding this using this traditional diplomacy between nuclear powers. 846 00:55:27,234 --> 00:55:29,794 They have 6,000 nukes and we should treat them like that. 847 00:55:30,554 --> 00:55:37,354 But we didn't do that because we're all in this mentality where we kind of gave in and 848 00:55:37,354 --> 00:55:38,874 kind of centralized our intelligence. 849 00:55:38,874 --> 00:55:43,814 And the intelligence was focused exclusively on how do we defeat, utterly defeat Russia? 850 00:55:44,494 --> 00:55:48,154 We disconnected them, and everyone operated at an individual level to disconnect them. 851 00:55:48,734 --> 00:55:54,334 Way down in governments that had done nothing to formally disconnect from Russia or take any action, 852 00:55:54,634 --> 00:55:58,414 there were agencies and bureaucracies disconnecting from Russia. 853 00:55:58,614 --> 00:56:03,254 Everyone was trying to find ways to kind of damage them, hurt them. 854 00:56:03,254 --> 00:56:05,094 And we intensified the conflict. 855 00:56:05,414 --> 00:56:10,354 And so the chances of any resolution or any kind of peaceful exit from it became existing. 856 00:56:10,354 --> 00:56:35,294 Did you say, John, that, I mean, I forget who coined the term suicidal empathy, but it rattles around in the back of my head. And I think it was coined and used at the individual level. And we see individuals, you know, without going too into details, who are taking on, and you noted this, you know, they're feeling the physical pain in their bodies because they have been doused in this, you know, kind of content and these algorithms. 857 00:56:35,294 --> 00:56:37,694 and so they take it on individually 858 00:56:37,694 --> 00:56:39,054 and they behave in ways 859 00:56:39,054 --> 00:56:40,814 that are self-harming 860 00:56:40,814 --> 00:56:42,394 for the perceived benefit of another 861 00:56:42,394 --> 00:56:44,354 with whom they have no real connection. 862 00:56:44,474 --> 00:56:45,574 So my point there is 863 00:56:45,574 --> 00:56:47,134 is what you've described 864 00:56:47,134 --> 00:56:48,834 as this suicidal empathy 865 00:56:48,834 --> 00:56:50,734 at the swarm or network level? 866 00:56:51,534 --> 00:56:52,494 The society level, yeah. 867 00:56:52,654 --> 00:56:54,114 I mean, we hadn't seen, 868 00:56:54,234 --> 00:56:56,094 I mean, nation states go to war 869 00:56:56,094 --> 00:56:58,514 and they ramp up this tribalism, right? 870 00:56:58,554 --> 00:57:00,494 Because nationalism is a form of tribalism 871 00:57:00,494 --> 00:57:02,694 that we've weakened over time. 872 00:57:03,074 --> 00:57:03,574 It takes a while. 873 00:57:03,674 --> 00:57:04,414 It takes a lot of effort. 874 00:57:05,294 --> 00:57:07,934 A lot of propaganda, a lot of push. 875 00:57:08,954 --> 00:57:10,974 Forms happen in weeks and days. 876 00:57:11,414 --> 00:57:13,774 Okay, so it goes at a whole society level. 877 00:57:14,014 --> 00:57:19,014 And we saw it cross the line with the Ukraine situation in war and peace. 878 00:57:19,914 --> 00:57:21,974 It changed the whole rhetoric on the war. 879 00:57:21,974 --> 00:57:30,814 From, you know, the kind of low emphasis it had with Crimea and other intrusions by Russia into Ukraine to we're fighting Hitler. 880 00:57:30,814 --> 00:57:36,354 and it changed the whole dynamic of it and and the resolution and the loss of life that resulted 881 00:57:36,354 --> 00:57:40,594 i mean the million people that are dead today because of that lightning and we also saw you 882 00:57:40,594 --> 00:57:46,774 know at the nation state level with israel when they were attacked the mentality associated with 883 00:57:46,774 --> 00:57:52,534 that justified the what came after that kind of swarm intensity both the nation level and then 884 00:57:52,534 --> 00:57:59,554 and now we saw it on the back side you know start to ramp up in defense of gaza so we're talking 885 00:57:59,554 --> 00:58:01,974 at the national level, 886 00:58:02,114 --> 00:58:03,554 you could have the suicide current 887 00:58:03,554 --> 00:58:04,914 and it could be the thing 888 00:58:04,914 --> 00:58:06,654 that kicks off the long night. 889 00:58:06,854 --> 00:58:07,114 It's like, 890 00:58:07,494 --> 00:58:08,194 if everyone thinks 891 00:58:08,194 --> 00:58:09,274 that this is so dangerous 892 00:58:09,274 --> 00:58:10,834 that we have to suppress it, 893 00:58:11,094 --> 00:58:11,814 that this is like 894 00:58:11,814 --> 00:58:13,594 the end of all things, 895 00:58:13,694 --> 00:58:15,174 then why don't we lock it down? 896 00:58:15,454 --> 00:58:17,074 Victory at all costs must be... 897 00:58:17,074 --> 00:58:18,614 Yeah, and that's the camel's nose. 898 00:58:18,794 --> 00:58:20,294 Every network starts to get intrusions 899 00:58:20,294 --> 00:58:21,974 and then let's add this, 900 00:58:22,234 --> 00:58:22,934 let's add that, 901 00:58:23,294 --> 00:58:23,894 let's add this, 902 00:58:24,054 --> 00:58:24,694 and then it goes 903 00:58:24,694 --> 00:58:26,674 more and more and more 904 00:58:26,674 --> 00:58:27,854 and then all of society 905 00:58:27,854 --> 00:58:37,494 is aligned to a specific orthodoxy behavior and we end. Well, I know you're in the business of 906 00:58:37,494 --> 00:58:42,754 more of diagnosing, connecting and diagnosing than you are prescribing. And we touched on this 907 00:58:42,754 --> 00:58:49,294 earlier, but other than, you know, I think disconnecting from social networks is either 908 00:58:49,294 --> 00:58:56,954 impractical for some, or I would argue not enough. Someone listening thinks, wow, this is, this is, 909 00:58:57,854 --> 00:58:58,994 Why would we disconnect? 910 00:58:59,914 --> 00:59:00,554 Okay, good. 911 00:59:00,634 --> 00:59:01,394 Yeah, so let's go there. 912 00:59:01,614 --> 00:59:05,974 What are a few choices that one makes in light of all this to maintain agency, 913 00:59:06,134 --> 00:59:08,154 intellectually, economically, physically? 914 00:59:10,434 --> 00:59:12,254 Stay connected, but be skeptical. 915 00:59:12,614 --> 00:59:16,694 And don't get swept away in the emotional kind of contagion associated with empathy. 916 00:59:16,694 --> 00:59:20,834 Try to protect the others around you from being exposed, but that seems to be impossible now. 917 00:59:21,434 --> 00:59:23,954 A lot of people, you know, they get swept up in it, 918 00:59:24,094 --> 00:59:26,694 and that can affect your relationship with them if you're not. 919 00:59:27,194 --> 00:59:27,434 Yes. 920 00:59:27,854 --> 00:59:30,154 as courageous they are. 921 00:59:32,194 --> 00:59:35,074 And then watch out for people 922 00:59:35,074 --> 00:59:38,734 trying to slide in aligned AI services. 923 00:59:39,534 --> 00:59:40,434 And what I mean aligned 924 00:59:40,434 --> 00:59:41,694 is aligned to whatever 925 00:59:41,694 --> 00:59:43,694 they think is right or wrong 926 00:59:43,694 --> 00:59:44,694 in their value system. 927 00:59:45,534 --> 00:59:48,174 Is that like when we are quickly 928 00:59:48,174 --> 00:59:49,794 going to AI tutors everywhere, 929 00:59:50,014 --> 00:59:51,774 all the, everyone with any kind of money, 930 00:59:51,934 --> 00:59:52,994 their kids are being tutored 931 00:59:52,994 --> 00:59:54,474 with technological literacy. 932 00:59:54,474 --> 00:59:55,594 Their kids are doing tutors 933 00:59:55,594 --> 00:59:57,394 rather than going to standard private school. 934 00:59:57,854 --> 00:59:59,654 you know, and by AIs. 935 01:00:00,274 --> 01:00:02,454 And they're three grade levels ahead 936 01:00:02,454 --> 01:00:03,514 or four grade levels ahead 937 01:00:03,514 --> 01:00:04,514 and they're grouping together 938 01:00:04,514 --> 01:00:05,314 and they're doing this. 939 01:00:06,114 --> 01:00:08,434 But you have to watch the alignment, 940 01:00:08,594 --> 01:00:10,534 the value structure that's being put into that. 941 01:00:10,634 --> 01:00:11,094 And that takes, 942 01:00:11,314 --> 01:00:12,874 you have to know what it is 943 01:00:12,874 --> 01:00:14,094 and know to look for it. 944 01:00:14,474 --> 01:00:16,274 And then finding a system for doing that, 945 01:00:16,274 --> 01:00:19,414 that allows you to have that control. 946 01:00:19,994 --> 01:00:20,674 Some people say, 947 01:00:20,954 --> 01:00:22,594 I want these certain religious values in 948 01:00:22,594 --> 01:00:23,954 or certain viewpoints. 949 01:00:24,094 --> 01:00:25,074 Good, do that. 950 01:00:25,794 --> 01:00:27,034 But you have to find that system. 951 01:00:27,034 --> 01:00:31,954 not like public school where you're kind of forced in and do it but if you're in these systems these 952 01:00:31,954 --> 01:00:36,154 ais these tutors are going to be much more intrusive with the kids going up they're always 953 01:00:36,154 --> 01:00:42,014 going to be surrounded by AI and they'll be guiding them forward in their decision making 954 01:00:42,014 --> 01:00:48,094 forever you'll never be alone a few more years you will never be alone you always have this 955 01:00:48,094 --> 01:00:55,014 AI companion hopefully not a super intelligent AI that will end up killing you but 956 01:00:55,014 --> 01:00:58,854 that are working with you and helping you become better, 957 01:00:59,874 --> 01:01:00,774 achieving your goals, 958 01:01:01,574 --> 01:01:03,654 and thereby, through that, achieving their own goals. 959 01:01:04,594 --> 01:01:05,554 So what I hear you say is, 960 01:01:05,674 --> 01:01:09,114 as one that you would entrust your children's time 961 01:01:09,114 --> 01:01:11,834 and safety with, 962 01:01:11,914 --> 01:01:14,714 is to assure that you are capable, you're literate, 963 01:01:14,714 --> 01:01:17,314 you are able to screen, to choose, 964 01:01:17,474 --> 01:01:21,294 to select what it is that your kids will be exposed to 965 01:01:21,294 --> 01:01:22,534 because they will be exposed to it. 966 01:01:23,094 --> 01:01:24,374 And the same thing for your business and everything else. 967 01:01:24,374 --> 01:01:29,054 as disconnected and locally controlled as you can get. 968 01:01:29,674 --> 01:01:34,454 If you have a private VM in an AI server cloud in space, 969 01:01:34,534 --> 01:01:36,714 it's okay as long as you control it 970 01:01:36,714 --> 01:01:38,634 and nobody else is siphoning off the intelligence 971 01:01:38,634 --> 01:01:41,914 that you're, the modifications, the adaptations, 972 01:01:42,074 --> 01:01:43,614 the improvements that you're making to that AI 973 01:01:43,614 --> 01:01:45,214 to their central cloud. 974 01:01:45,854 --> 01:01:45,934 Right. 975 01:01:45,974 --> 01:01:46,554 You'll be fine. 976 01:01:47,974 --> 01:01:50,694 If you're relying on these centralized services, 977 01:01:51,014 --> 01:01:53,494 yeah, they're going to have a lot of locks and controls 978 01:01:53,494 --> 01:01:56,474 and alignment issues that are going to bite you in the ass long term. 979 01:01:57,034 --> 01:02:00,814 Every investment you make is going to be siphoned off to the cloud 980 01:02:00,814 --> 01:02:03,074 and used by them to compete against you. 981 01:02:03,254 --> 01:02:08,134 Plus, they'll be limiting and directing the behavior of your AI set. 982 01:02:09,514 --> 01:02:13,794 And then that goes with society too, like the neighborhood and the nationals. 983 01:02:14,694 --> 01:02:18,174 So we have to kind of make sure that, yeah, it's going to be embedded. 984 01:02:19,294 --> 01:02:21,674 Sorry to make this so much about AI, 985 01:02:21,674 --> 01:02:25,374 but it's like, I don't think people fully appreciate how this fascist is coming. 986 01:02:25,374 --> 01:02:26,054 No, how could you not? 987 01:02:26,354 --> 01:02:26,494 Right. 988 01:02:26,754 --> 01:02:28,074 Go ahead. 989 01:02:28,674 --> 01:02:29,714 No, it's not ASI. 990 01:02:29,814 --> 01:02:31,714 It's not the super intelligence that everyone's worried about. 991 01:02:31,834 --> 01:02:33,774 It's like, this is stuff that every, 992 01:02:34,074 --> 01:02:36,154 almost every AI that we've interacted with socially 993 01:02:36,154 --> 01:02:40,134 is capable of doing real work long-term. 994 01:02:40,254 --> 01:02:41,014 And it's already here. 995 01:02:41,394 --> 01:02:42,034 They're already capable. 996 01:02:43,154 --> 01:02:45,374 And I think, you know, I have gone through, 997 01:02:45,514 --> 01:02:49,054 and perhaps on a day-to-day or if not day-to-day weekly basis, 998 01:02:49,054 --> 01:02:57,554 feel the wave of this is hype, this is real, this is hype, this is real. And I think it is objective 999 01:02:57,554 --> 01:03:03,154 as I can be. It's hard not to make this a focal point of conversation with regard to all things 1000 01:03:03,154 --> 01:03:09,954 technology, certainly, but in the vein of this show about trust and being able to perceive and 1001 01:03:09,954 --> 01:03:14,414 have the critical thought to know what is being thrown at us, what are our family members, 1002 01:03:14,414 --> 01:03:17,974 friends, colleagues, being engaged with in terms of AI. 1003 01:03:18,754 --> 01:03:23,554 And maybe on that note, John, and you've noted that you've worked with your son on some projects, 1004 01:03:23,854 --> 01:03:29,574 perhaps as specific as your son, but if not broadly, what would you advise a young person 1005 01:03:29,574 --> 01:03:31,954 who's trying to navigate the next decade? 1006 01:03:32,554 --> 01:03:35,194 What, we touched on this a little bit, but what should they go build? 1007 01:03:36,054 --> 01:03:37,394 What's the opportunity really? 1008 01:03:37,394 --> 01:03:47,994 everything you do regardless of the focus area try to find ways to leverage yourself with it 1009 01:03:47,994 --> 01:03:55,714 when they start driving and that you don't have to do something technology related it's could be 1010 01:03:55,714 --> 01:04:01,454 real world you're solving but you're using ai am using technological resources that 1011 01:04:01,454 --> 01:04:06,594 super empower yourself as long as you're doing that and you're doing that to the maximum you're 1012 01:04:06,594 --> 01:04:08,154 keeping abreast of how to do that, 1013 01:04:08,414 --> 01:04:09,094 you'll do fine. 1014 01:04:09,194 --> 01:04:10,414 You don't have to go out 1015 01:04:10,414 --> 01:04:11,374 and build technology 1016 01:04:11,374 --> 01:04:12,034 or, you know, 1017 01:04:12,074 --> 01:04:13,874 or build something new 1018 01:04:13,874 --> 01:04:15,034 in the technological area. 1019 01:04:15,814 --> 01:04:17,014 Just using technology 1020 01:04:17,014 --> 01:04:18,274 to amplify your capacity. 1021 01:04:18,294 --> 01:04:18,974 Did you say leverage? 1022 01:04:19,814 --> 01:04:20,034 Yeah. 1023 01:04:20,734 --> 01:04:20,974 Yeah. 1024 01:04:22,674 --> 01:04:23,794 We were talking earlier 1025 01:04:23,794 --> 01:04:25,174 about trust and stuff 1026 01:04:25,174 --> 01:04:26,074 that could be cool 1027 01:04:26,074 --> 01:04:28,154 is there are possibilities 1028 01:04:28,154 --> 01:04:29,314 with AI to really, 1029 01:04:29,314 --> 01:04:30,154 you know, heighten. 1030 01:04:30,454 --> 01:04:31,454 I always thought 1031 01:04:31,454 --> 01:04:32,414 that Dunbar number, 1032 01:04:32,534 --> 01:04:32,714 you know, 1033 01:04:32,774 --> 01:04:33,694 familiar with the Dunbar number. 1034 01:04:34,034 --> 01:04:34,214 150. 1035 01:04:34,354 --> 01:04:35,174 It's like, yeah, 1036 01:04:35,314 --> 01:04:36,354 as the limit of your, 1037 01:04:36,594 --> 01:04:41,834 relationships of who you can know enough about in order to trust them or like adjudicate the level 1038 01:04:41,834 --> 01:04:47,974 of trust that you're going to afford them right is that ai could potentially serve as a way to 1039 01:04:47,974 --> 01:04:56,274 increase that orders of magnitude is that i have a trusted ai who knows who i am okay it's been 1040 01:04:56,274 --> 01:05:04,694 adjudicated by the system as something that will tell the truth and will properly convey the assets 1041 01:05:04,694 --> 01:05:06,774 of who I am and my expected behavior in the future. 1042 01:05:07,934 --> 01:05:10,574 And you have one and you have one and you have one. 1043 01:05:10,654 --> 01:05:12,714 And it's up to a million of other people who do this. 1044 01:05:13,854 --> 01:05:17,094 They interact and find people that you can trust 1045 01:05:17,094 --> 01:05:19,234 and you implicitly trust them the moment you see them. 1046 01:05:19,734 --> 01:05:20,314 A digital twin. 1047 01:05:21,254 --> 01:05:23,554 Yeah, your doppelganger, your version of you 1048 01:05:23,554 --> 01:05:28,254 that is that, what do they call that? 1049 01:05:28,254 --> 01:05:30,814 The selfish ledger. 1050 01:05:31,754 --> 01:05:32,534 Right, right. 1051 01:05:32,654 --> 01:05:34,594 We're already creating a selfish ledger of ourselves. 1052 01:05:34,694 --> 01:05:37,274 meaning that's a version of ourselves that are online 1053 01:05:37,274 --> 01:05:38,174 because we're interacting. 1054 01:05:38,254 --> 01:05:39,354 We've never met in person, right? 1055 01:05:39,414 --> 01:05:41,334 So, you know, everything we know about each other 1056 01:05:41,334 --> 01:05:42,394 is this digital version. 1057 01:05:42,734 --> 01:05:44,194 Everything we've written, everything we do. 1058 01:05:44,734 --> 01:05:45,354 It's intermediated. 1059 01:05:45,674 --> 01:05:47,994 Yeah, and the success of that digital version 1060 01:05:47,994 --> 01:05:50,894 is our success because it confers back on. 1061 01:05:51,694 --> 01:05:55,394 And the real world is that that can be quantized, 1062 01:05:55,394 --> 01:05:57,694 that can be given a trust metric 1063 01:05:57,694 --> 01:06:02,774 or way of conveying that other people can adjudicate 1064 01:06:02,774 --> 01:06:04,354 as to whether or not they trust that. 1065 01:06:04,694 --> 01:06:09,694 know that you could be really quickly just flow into these trusted relationships that 1066 01:06:09,694 --> 01:06:12,534 can scale in ways that we haven't seen since tribalism. 1067 01:06:12,594 --> 01:06:13,834 Because tribalism was real trust. 1068 01:06:13,914 --> 01:06:14,634 I knew you. 1069 01:06:15,374 --> 01:06:16,374 I work with you. 1070 01:06:16,494 --> 01:06:17,454 I live with you. 1071 01:06:17,634 --> 01:06:19,814 Your success in the long term is my success. 1072 01:06:20,474 --> 01:06:22,194 If you die, I'm weaker as a result. 1073 01:06:22,394 --> 01:06:24,254 And then we went to beyond the tribe. 1074 01:06:24,334 --> 01:06:25,454 We started to barter. 1075 01:06:26,134 --> 01:06:27,674 And barters are clear transactions. 1076 01:06:27,854 --> 01:06:28,494 I give you this. 1077 01:06:28,534 --> 01:06:29,054 You give me that. 1078 01:06:29,374 --> 01:06:30,474 We only do that with enemies. 1079 01:06:31,214 --> 01:06:32,454 We only barter with enemies. 1080 01:06:32,454 --> 01:06:34,634 We gift if it's in the tribe, right? 1081 01:06:34,694 --> 01:06:39,834 And then we start bartering and we scale that and then we go, okay, well, there's too many 1082 01:06:39,834 --> 01:06:43,314 players here, too many chances of getting stolen from or defrauded. 1083 01:06:43,674 --> 01:06:44,914 Let's start building laws. 1084 01:06:45,054 --> 01:06:48,574 Let's start building fake trust, like a hex of trust. 1085 01:06:49,414 --> 01:06:52,874 And then you start to do that and it scaled and now we're getting up to, then we went 1086 01:06:52,874 --> 01:06:53,374 to global. 1087 01:06:53,634 --> 01:06:57,854 We had nationalism kind of contain that, but then it went to global and all those fake 1088 01:06:57,854 --> 01:06:59,814 trust things start to really fall apart. 1089 01:07:00,314 --> 01:07:02,614 So everybody's kind of like, how can I loot this system? 1090 01:07:02,734 --> 01:07:04,054 How can I take advantages? 1091 01:07:04,054 --> 01:07:05,054 To where we began. 1092 01:07:05,834 --> 01:07:08,454 Yes, we're back to the breakdown of trust 1093 01:07:08,454 --> 01:07:11,214 after we tried to get bigger than the tribe. 1094 01:07:12,014 --> 01:07:14,974 Can the AIs provide us a kind of a tribalism? 1095 01:07:16,154 --> 01:07:18,934 Me and my 5 million best friends 1096 01:07:18,934 --> 01:07:22,034 or people I could trust 1097 01:07:22,034 --> 01:07:24,554 have decided that we're not going to do this. 1098 01:07:25,754 --> 01:07:28,114 We're not going to deal with people who do this 1099 01:07:28,114 --> 01:07:29,354 or this or this or this. 1100 01:07:29,514 --> 01:07:31,614 And we can do things together without friction, 1101 01:07:31,614 --> 01:07:34,294 without the kind of Coasean hangups. 1102 01:07:34,574 --> 01:07:35,474 And we can keep, we can, 1103 01:07:36,294 --> 01:07:37,794 one thing about AIs doing, 1104 01:07:38,254 --> 01:07:40,234 incorporate AIs and groups of AIs incorporating 1105 01:07:40,234 --> 01:07:42,454 is that it can eliminate Coasean friction 1106 01:07:42,454 --> 01:07:45,994 and, you know, down to very, very, very low levels. 1107 01:07:46,314 --> 01:07:49,194 And humans can match that or incorporate into that 1108 01:07:49,194 --> 01:07:51,934 is to build this kind of system among each other. 1109 01:07:52,934 --> 01:07:54,014 Oh, you know, what just hit me, John, 1110 01:07:54,054 --> 01:07:57,554 as you were saying that is much as price is a signal, 1111 01:07:58,514 --> 01:08:00,134 the signal that flows through free markets 1112 01:08:00,134 --> 01:08:02,874 is what if trust signals can flow at the same speed, 1113 01:08:03,474 --> 01:08:05,434 with the same distributed efficacy? 1114 01:08:06,714 --> 01:08:09,274 Have you ever read the Manneke Nako? 1115 01:08:09,914 --> 01:08:10,954 The Bruce Sterling book? 1116 01:08:11,454 --> 01:08:12,494 Or it's actually a short story? 1117 01:08:13,234 --> 01:08:13,714 You don't know. 1118 01:08:14,634 --> 01:08:18,334 Okay, so look up the Bruce Sterling short story, 1119 01:08:18,634 --> 01:08:20,614 Manneke Nako, the cat. 1120 01:08:21,154 --> 01:08:23,074 I consider myself a fan, 1121 01:08:23,134 --> 01:08:25,294 so I'm embarrassed that I can't count that as one I've read. 1122 01:08:25,554 --> 01:08:27,074 It's one of the best things he ever wrote. 1123 01:08:27,074 --> 01:08:36,334 it's about this kind of uh ai enabled system for gifting okay and so he doesn't really get 1124 01:08:36,334 --> 01:08:41,314 into the ad piece but it's the system that knows what you want by watching you and what what you 1125 01:08:41,314 --> 01:08:46,254 desire and it finds somebody that has the ability to give it to you and you build up kind of credit 1126 01:08:46,254 --> 01:08:52,774 and and what happens is you give stuff that you can give to the people that are and it's finding 1127 01:08:52,774 --> 01:08:54,434 what they really need versus an income. 1128 01:08:54,914 --> 01:08:56,454 So you need a place to crash 1129 01:08:56,454 --> 01:08:58,014 or you need some supplies for your art. 1130 01:08:58,534 --> 01:09:01,134 You need to find people that are appreciative of the art 1131 01:09:01,134 --> 01:09:01,914 or whatever. 1132 01:09:02,134 --> 01:09:05,194 It becomes this whole system that runs parallel to the economy 1133 01:09:05,194 --> 01:09:06,454 and it kind of takes off in Japan. 1134 01:09:07,234 --> 01:09:08,334 And it's like... 1135 01:09:08,334 --> 01:09:09,154 Because of course it would. 1136 01:09:09,734 --> 01:09:09,954 Yeah. 1137 01:09:10,054 --> 01:09:11,454 And the rest of the country is like, 1138 01:09:11,974 --> 01:09:13,314 why is the economy evaporating? 1139 01:09:13,334 --> 01:09:14,254 We can't stop this. 1140 01:09:14,614 --> 01:09:17,034 And it's like they try to come in and regulate it and flow it. 1141 01:09:17,374 --> 01:09:20,294 But it turns everything into a gifting economy 1142 01:09:20,294 --> 01:09:22,374 that provides you everything you... 1143 01:09:22,774 --> 01:09:27,414 think you need versus what we've been taught that we should need. 1144 01:09:28,014 --> 01:09:29,494 Coincidence of what you really need. 1145 01:09:29,574 --> 01:09:29,654 Yeah. 1146 01:09:29,654 --> 01:09:30,714 I was like, yeah. 1147 01:09:30,934 --> 01:09:36,874 And matching them without true economic, this intermediary or mechanism that we go through. 1148 01:09:37,094 --> 01:09:37,534 Right. 1149 01:09:37,774 --> 01:09:38,254 Pretty cool. 1150 01:09:38,994 --> 01:09:39,434 Incredibly. 1151 01:09:39,514 --> 01:09:43,914 And I think that, you know, that's maybe a terrific place to wrap it up is I do find 1152 01:09:43,914 --> 01:09:50,974 myself personally in a delicate, sometimes balance between being in awe of the possibility 1153 01:09:50,974 --> 01:09:55,914 and the potential in a lifelong, you know, nerd seeing some of this science fiction that I read 1154 01:09:55,914 --> 01:10:02,814 as a kid come true. And as you've laid out some very potent cautionary tales of what can go wrong. 1155 01:10:03,074 --> 01:10:07,794 And so I think that's why, John, I was really eager to have this conversation. I'm grateful 1156 01:10:07,794 --> 01:10:13,114 for your time and your insights. And I cannot strongly enough suggest people subscribe to 1157 01:10:13,114 --> 01:10:17,874 Global Gorillas on Substack because it is a very unique collection of work that gives, 1158 01:10:17,874 --> 01:10:21,394 I think, insight into what's coming and what could be right around the corner. 1159 01:10:22,834 --> 01:10:23,434 Thank you so much. 1160 01:10:23,994 --> 01:10:24,574 Been fun, Sean. 1161 01:10:24,854 --> 01:10:25,854 Thank you so much, John. 1162 01:10:25,934 --> 01:10:28,754 Hope to do this very soon and all the best. 1163 01:10:29,534 --> 01:10:29,774 All right. 1164 01:10:30,214 --> 01:10:30,494 Take care. 1165 01:10:47,874 --> 01:10:49,934 you