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Title: Mustafa Suleyman: The AGI Race Is Fake, Building Safe Superintelligence & the Agentic Economy | #216
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What's the mandate from SATA? Is it win
(00:00:03)
AGI?
(00:00:04)
>> I don't think there's really a winning
(00:00:05)
of AGI. I'm not sure there's a race.
(00:00:08)
>> One of the OGs of the AI world, Mustafa
(00:00:11)
Saliman is the CEO now of Microsoft AI.
(00:00:14)
He spent more than a decade at the
(00:00:15)
forefront of this industry before uh we
(00:00:19)
even had gotten to feel it in the past
(00:00:21)
couple of years. Now,
(00:00:24)
>> fundamentally, the transition that we're
(00:00:25)
making is from a world of operating
(00:00:29)
systems, search engines, apps, and
(00:00:32)
browsers to a world of agents and
(00:00:35)
companions. We're all going as fast as
(00:00:37)
we possibly can, but a race implies it's
(00:00:40)
zero sum. It implies that there's a
(00:00:42)
finish line, and it is like not quite
(00:00:44)
the right metaphor. As we know,
(00:00:45)
technologies and science and knowledge
(00:00:47)
proliferate everywhere, all at once, at
(00:00:50)
all scales. basically simultaneously.
(00:00:52)
>> Are you spending a lot of your energy
(00:00:54)
compute uh human power on safety?
(00:00:57)
>> Yeah. No, I I mean,
(00:01:01)
>> now that's a moonshot, ladies and
(00:01:02)
gentlemen.
(00:01:06)
>> Everybody, welcome to Moonshots. I'm
(00:01:07)
here with DB2 and AWG and Mustafa
(00:01:10)
Soliman, uh the co-founder of Deep Mind,
(00:01:13)
Inflection AI, and now the CEO of
(00:01:16)
Microsoft AI.
(00:01:18)
Uh welcome, my friend. It's good to have
(00:01:20)
you here. Thank you for making time for
(00:01:21)
us.
(00:01:22)
>> Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited
(00:01:23)
to do this.
(00:01:24)
>> Yeah, it's um you know what you've been
(00:01:27)
building with Satia is amazing. Uh and
(00:01:30)
it's hard to believe that Microsoft is
(00:01:32)
50 years old and it's reinvented itself
(00:01:35)
so many times and for the last 5 years
(00:01:38)
it's been you know at the top of the
(00:01:40)
game the most valuable company in the
(00:01:42)
world 250,000 employees and from what I
(00:01:46)
understand 10,000 employees now under
(00:01:48)
you. Uh so a few you know important
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questions I want to open with. Uh first
(00:01:54)
some broad context. Uh you're building
(00:01:58)
inside a massive company with huge
(00:02:01)
resources probably arguably more than
(00:02:03)
almost everybody else. And the question
(00:02:06)
I have is what what's the end goal here?
(00:02:11)
You've got all the hyperscalers sort of
(00:02:13)
providing open access to AI and they're
(00:02:15)
doing sort of a land grab uh to try and
(00:02:18)
get as many users as possible. Uh you've
(00:02:21)
been building sort of in a you know
(00:02:23)
within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Uh
(00:02:28)
is the goal in the you know next couple
(00:02:31)
years maximum users? Is it data centers?
(00:02:35)
Is it uh you know is it cloud? How do
(00:02:39)
you think of what you're optimizing for?
(00:02:42)
>> I mean, it's a good question. So, I
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mean, we're are on any given day a $4
(00:02:45)
trillion company with almost $300
(00:02:47)
billion of revenue. Um, it's incredible.
(00:02:50)
It's just surreal and very, very, very
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humbling. Um,
(00:02:54)
>> and we play at every layer of the stack.
(00:02:57)
I mean, obviously, we have an enormous
(00:02:58)
business in data centers and in some
(00:03:00)
ways we're like a modern construction
(00:03:02)
company. hundreds of thousands of
(00:03:05)
construction workers building gigawatts
(00:03:07)
a year of uh you know CPU and AI
(00:03:10)
accelerators of all kinds and enabling
(00:03:13)
that you know to be available to the
(00:03:15)
market. um APIs on top of that, but also
(00:03:18)
firstparty products in every domain you
(00:03:21)
can think of from gaming and LinkedIn
(00:03:23)
right the way through to all the
(00:03:24)
fundamentals of M365 and Windows
(00:03:28)
um and of course in our search and
(00:03:30)
consumer businesses and too and
(00:03:33)
fundamentally the transition that we're
(00:03:35)
making is from a world of operating
(00:03:38)
systems, search engines, apps and
(00:03:41)
browsers to a world of agents and
(00:03:44)
companions.
(00:03:45)
Um, all of these user interfaces are
(00:03:48)
going to get subsumed into a
(00:03:50)
conversational agentic form. Um, and
(00:03:54)
these models are going to feel like
(00:03:56)
having a a real assistant in your pocket
(00:03:59)
24/7 that can do anything that has all
(00:04:01)
your context. And you're going to do
(00:04:02)
less and less of the direct computing
(00:04:04)
just as we're seeing now. Many software
(00:04:06)
engineers are using assistive code
(00:04:09)
coding agents to to um both debug their
(00:04:12)
code and also generate large amounts of
(00:04:14)
code just as we used libraries, third
(00:04:16)
party libraries. Now we're just going to
(00:04:17)
use AIs to do do that generation and
(00:04:20)
it's making them more efficient and more
(00:04:23)
accurate and faster and so on and so
(00:04:25)
forth. So the the trajectory we're on is
(00:04:27)
quite predictable. It's one from user
(00:04:30)
interfaces to AI agents and that is a
(00:04:34)
paradigm shift which the company is
(00:04:37)
completely focused on like you know
(00:04:39)
after seeing five decades worth of
(00:04:41)
transitions I think the company is like
(00:04:44)
super alert to making sure that we're
(00:04:46)
best placed to manage this one. Do you
(00:04:48)
see yourself providing sort of an open-
(00:04:51)
source AI like the other players out
(00:04:53)
there or do you think you can keep it
(00:04:55)
contained within within Microsoft 365?
(00:04:58)
>> I think we're pretty open-minded. I
(00:05:00)
mean, we've got some pretty small
(00:05:01)
open-source models. Um, I think
(00:05:04)
realistically,
(00:05:05)
>> when I say open source, I really mean
(00:05:06)
open access, if you would.
(00:05:08)
>> Yeah. I mean, look, there are always
(00:05:09)
going to be APIs that provide incredibly
(00:05:13)
powerful models. I mean, you know,
(00:05:14)
Microsoft is really a platform of
(00:05:16)
platforms. being a platform and being a
(00:05:18)
great
(00:05:19)
>> provider of the core infrastructure that
(00:05:21)
enables other people to be productive
(00:05:23)
>> is is like the DNA of the company. Um,
(00:05:26)
and so we will always have masses of
(00:05:29)
APIs that turbocharge that. But what an
(00:05:31)
API is is going to start to look kind of
(00:05:33)
different too. Like it it may be pretty
(00:05:37)
blurred the distinction between the API
(00:05:39)
and the agent itself. maybe that we're
(00:05:41)
principally in the business in 5 years
(00:05:42)
time of selling agents that perform
(00:05:45)
certain tasks that come with a
(00:05:48)
certification of reliability, security,
(00:05:50)
safety, and trust. And that is actually
(00:05:53)
in many ways the strength of Microsoft
(00:05:56)
and that's one of the things that's
(00:05:57)
attracted to me is like this is a
(00:05:59)
company that's incredibly trusted. it's
(00:06:02)
actually very secure
(00:06:03)
>> and sometimes I think the the slowness
(00:06:07)
or the friction is actually a bit of an
(00:06:10)
asset. You know, there's a kind of
(00:06:12)
steadiness that comes with having
(00:06:14)
provided for all of the world's biggest
(00:06:18)
uh Fortune 500 companies and governments
(00:06:21)
and major institutions.
(00:06:22)
>> Is it like the old adage, you can't go
(00:06:24)
wrong buying IBM in the old days? I
(00:06:26)
think you just there's a there's a
(00:06:28)
steadiness about us which I think is
(00:06:31)
reassuring to people and there's a kind
(00:06:33)
of like deliberate customerfocused
(00:06:36)
patience.
(00:06:38)
>> Um you know there's not the same anxiety
(00:06:40)
and you know sort of somewhat sclerotic
(00:06:43)
nature that comes with being you know an
(00:06:46)
insurgent. Um there's some downsides to
(00:06:49)
our position. You know we take a little
(00:06:51)
longer to get things through but the
(00:06:52)
company is firing on all cylinders. It's
(00:06:54)
very impressive to see. One more
(00:06:56)
question before I turn it over to Alex.
(00:06:57)
Uh, you know, we're seeing in these in
(00:06:59)
this hyperscaler war, I mean, literally,
(00:07:01)
uh, you know, a week by week, everybody
(00:07:03)
outdoing each other in this, uh, in this
(00:07:06)
insane period of, uh, everybody coming
(00:07:08)
out with with the new benchmarks. Uh,
(00:07:13)
you know, do you miss not being in that
(00:07:16)
game or is the stability that Microsoft
(00:07:18)
provides to build for a long-term vision
(00:07:21)
sort of, uh, what you find most
(00:07:23)
exciting? You know, uh, my background at
(00:07:26)
Deep Mind is such that I spent a good
(00:07:29)
decade grinding through the flat part of
(00:07:32)
the exponential where basically nothing
(00:07:34)
worked. I mean, you know, really like
(00:07:38)
there was some amazing papers. Uh, Alph
(00:07:41)
Go was obviously incredible, but it was
(00:07:42)
in a very unique simulated controlled
(00:07:45)
game-like environment, but things
(00:07:48)
actually working in the real world were
(00:07:49)
few and far between. Um, and so, you
(00:07:53)
know, I've always taken a multi-deade
(00:07:55)
view,
(00:07:56)
>> and that's just been my instinct. And I
(00:07:58)
think that, um, you know, yes, it's
(00:08:01)
super important to ship new models every
(00:08:03)
month and be out there in the market,
(00:08:04)
but it's actually more important to lay
(00:08:06)
the right foundation for what's coming
(00:08:08)
cuz I think it's going to be the the
(00:08:10)
most wild transition we have ever made
(00:08:13)
as a species. It's
(00:08:14)
>> Can you just flesh that out a little
(00:08:15)
bit? Was there a period of time where it
(00:08:17)
was just three of you grinding it out in
(00:08:18)
London? Well, there were more than three
(00:08:21)
of us, but I mean for the decade between
(00:08:22)
2010 and 2012, sorry, 2020.
(00:08:26)
>> Um, I mean, there were just like so few
(00:08:29)
successful commercial applications of uh
(00:08:33)
of of deep learning. I mean, there were
(00:08:34)
plenty behind the scenes. There was
(00:08:36)
image recognition, improvements to
(00:08:38)
search, but commercial
(00:08:39)
>> huge market for
(00:08:40)
>> commercial. Yeah. Playing go not a huge
(00:08:42)
rock. Exactly. So, I think whereas now I
(00:08:44)
mean you then you see LLMs from 2022
(00:08:46)
onwards like in production.
(00:08:50)
people changing what it means to be a
(00:08:53)
human
(00:08:55)
relations like that, you know, that's we
(00:08:58)
hit an inflection point.
(00:09:00)
>> And you know, I think that um is very
(00:09:03)
very different to the grind of of like
(00:09:06)
training tiny models with very little
(00:09:08)
data and very small clusters back in the
(00:09:10)
2010s.
(00:09:11)
>> Every week, my team and I study the top
(00:09:13)
10 technology meta trends that will
(00:09:15)
transform industries over the decade
(00:09:17)
ahead. I cover trends ranging from
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humanoid robotics, AGI, and quantum
(00:09:21)
computing to transport, energy,
(00:09:22)
longevity, and more. There's no fluff,
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only the most important stuff that
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me to share these meta trends with you,
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I write a newsletter twice a week,
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sending it out as a short two-minute
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tech. It's not for you if you don't want
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dmandis.com/metats
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to gain access to the trends 10 years
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before anyone else. All right, now back
(00:10:05)
to this episode.
(00:10:06)
>> Yeah. So when last we spoke circa 2015 I
(00:10:10)
think that was perhaps 3 years post
(00:10:13)
imageet 5 years pre language models our
(00:10:17)
fshot learners agents agentic AI was
(00:10:20)
nowhere to be seen at the level of what
(00:10:22)
we see now since you've written you
(00:10:25)
about your vision um what you've I think
(00:10:27)
socialized as a modern touring test the
(00:10:30)
idea of economic benchmarks for autonomy
(00:10:33)
by agents I I'd love to here. Where are
(00:10:37)
Microsoft's economic benchmarks for
(00:10:39)
these agents? If the the agents are
(00:10:41)
about to take over the economy or take
(00:10:43)
over so many economically useful
(00:10:45)
functions, why are we stuck with
(00:10:47)
benchmarks like vending bench rather
(00:10:49)
than Microsoft leading the way with
(00:10:52)
Microsoft's economically autonomous
(00:10:54)
benchmarks for its agents?
(00:10:55)
>> Yeah, I mean, it's probably just worth
(00:10:56)
adding the context that we met in 2015
(00:10:58)
in Puerto Rico at the AI safety
(00:11:00)
conference. True that many many of the
(00:11:02)
field now were at at the same time.
(00:11:05)
seminal moment.
(00:11:06)
>> Yeah. Was it the day after New Year's
(00:11:08)
Eve or somewhere around New Year?
(00:11:09)
>> It was pretty cold out everywhere except
(00:11:11)
Puerto Rico.
(00:11:12)
>> Yeah, exactly. It was pretty cool. Uh it
(00:11:14)
was quite surreal moment actually. Um
(00:11:16)
>> it's like a syllar right before it all
(00:11:19)
happened.
(00:11:19)
>> Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um and you know,
(00:11:23)
yeah, that the modern cheuring test was
(00:11:24)
something I proposed um I guess it was
(00:11:27)
2022 when I wrote it. Um and it was
(00:11:31)
basically making a pretty simple
(00:11:32)
prediction. Um, if the scaling laws
(00:11:34)
continue with more data and compute and
(00:11:36)
adding an order of magnitude more
(00:11:38)
compute to the best models in the world
(00:11:39)
every year, then it's pretty clear we
(00:11:42)
would go from recognition, which was the
(00:11:45)
first part of the wave, to generation,
(00:11:48)
uh, which is clearly we're now in the
(00:11:49)
middle of, or maybe ending that chapter,
(00:11:52)
to then having perfect generation at
(00:11:54)
every time step, which in sequence is
(00:11:56)
going to produce assistive agentive
(00:11:58)
actions. and actions would obviously
(00:12:01)
look like an intelligent knowledge
(00:12:03)
worker or a project manager or a
(00:12:05)
strategist or a startup founder or
(00:12:06)
whatever it is. And so then how would we
(00:12:08)
measure that performance rather than
(00:12:10)
measuring it with academic and
(00:12:12)
theoretical benchmarks? One would
(00:12:13)
clearly want to measure it through
(00:12:15)
capabilities. What can the thing do in
(00:12:17)
the in the economy in the workplace? And
(00:12:20)
how do we measure the economy? We
(00:12:21)
measure it by dollars and cents. And so
(00:12:23)
could you know what would be the first
(00:12:24)
model to make a million dollars? Now,
(00:12:26)
given as I recall, $100,000 in starting
(00:12:30)
capital.
(00:12:30)
>> That's right. Yeah. How who could which
(00:12:32)
which model could turn it into a million
(00:12:34)
dollars?
(00:12:34)
>> 10x return on investment by an agent.
(00:12:37)
>> Exactly. Um and so I think that's a
(00:12:41)
pretty good measure of performance and
(00:12:44)
capability. And certainly, you know,
(00:12:45)
we've kind of just breezed past the
(00:12:47)
cheuring test, right? I mean, it kind of
(00:12:49)
has been passed. No one's really done a
(00:12:51)
big, you know, alpha mentioner
(00:12:55)
silver prize wound down before we
(00:12:57)
breezed past touring.
(00:12:58)
>> Yeah. And no one celebrated it. Like
(00:13:00)
where was the big like, you know,
(00:13:02)
Casparov deep blue moment?
(00:13:04)
>> Can we clink virtual glasses right now
(00:13:06)
and celebrate that we won? It happened.
(00:13:09)
>> Yeah. Exactly. And that's the what it
(00:13:12)
feels like to kind of make progress in a
(00:13:15)
world full of these compounding
(00:13:16)
exponentials where we just get
(00:13:17)
desensitized to 10x. So much so that you
(00:13:20)
can be like, "Guys, why haven't you done
(00:13:22)
it yet?"
(00:13:22)
>> Yeah.
(00:13:24)
>> We're spoiled. Where's my Microsoft
(00:13:26)
Loger prize for the modern touring
(00:13:28)
tester,
(00:13:28)
>> right? Exactly. Um Yeah. You know, like
(00:13:31)
someone said to me earlier on, "But you
(00:13:33)
know, these this AI thing, it's still in
(00:13:34)
its infancy, isn't it?" And I'm like,
(00:13:36)
man, if this is infancy, wow. like I can
(00:13:39)
talk to my computer
(00:13:41)
fluently. Star Trek is here in real
(00:13:43)
time. Yeah, exactly.
(00:13:45)
>> Um, so, you know, obviously at the same
(00:13:48)
time, agents don't really work yet. The
(00:13:50)
action stuff is still progressing. It's
(00:13:53)
getting better and better every minute,
(00:13:54)
but it's pretty clear that in the next
(00:13:57)
couple of years, those things come into
(00:13:59)
view and they're going to be very, very
(00:14:00)
good.
(00:14:00)
>> Can we get together again after the
(00:14:02)
modern touring test has been passed and
(00:14:04)
and just to celebrate, recognize it?
(00:14:06)
>> Virtual glasses again. Absolutely.
(00:14:08)
>> Hopefully we can pop a, you know,
(00:14:10)
champagne or something.
(00:14:11)
>> I think we should have an optimist pop
(00:14:13)
the cork for us or something.
(00:14:15)
>> Exactly. Exactly.
(00:14:16)
>> Dave,
(00:14:17)
>> hey, I want to flush out that backstory
(00:14:18)
a little bit more, too. It's such a such
(00:14:20)
a cool story. But, um, I remember really
(00:14:22)
clearly, you know, after DeepMind got
(00:14:24)
acquired by Google, what was the price
(00:14:26)
tag on that deal? It was like half a
(00:14:28)
billion dollars, something like that.
(00:14:29)
>> 650.
(00:14:30)
650. What What year was that?
(00:14:32)
>> 2014.
(00:14:33)
>> 2014. I remember reading maybe a year or
(00:14:35)
two later that Google justifies deal by
(00:14:39)
having DeepMind uh tune the air
(00:14:41)
conditioning in the data centers.
(00:14:42)
>> Yeah. Right.
(00:14:44)
>> My interpretation of that was like,
(00:14:45)
"Wow, this isn't going all that well."
(00:14:47)
And and now it's obviously the biggest
(00:14:49)
thing that's happened in the history of
(00:14:50)
humanity and and and forking out all
(00:14:52)
over the place. But
(00:14:53)
>> I mean, we did the data center thing was
(00:14:55)
pretty cool. We did actually reduce the
(00:14:56)
cost of cooling the Google data center
(00:14:58)
fleet by
(00:14:58)
>> Yeah. It's so funny cuz I read it at the
(00:15:00)
time and I was like, "What a bust." And
(00:15:02)
then I read about it in Wikipedia on the
(00:15:04)
flight over here to to meet with you and
(00:15:05)
it's like it was actually what 500
(00:15:07)
attributes fitting into the neural net
(00:15:09)
and it was it was actually a lot more
(00:15:10)
complicated than the news made it sound.
(00:15:12)
>> That's it
(00:15:13)
>> at the time.
(00:15:14)
>> That's right.
(00:15:14)
>> But like you were talking about the flat
(00:15:16)
part of the exponential and you think
(00:15:17)
about like okay all of this R&D which is
(00:15:19)
so close to becoming AGI
(00:15:22)
>> is tuning the air conditioning. But
(00:15:24)
that's the nature of exponentials. They
(00:15:26)
sneak up on you like this. But the other
(00:15:27)
way to think about that is that it's
(00:15:29)
basically taking an arbitrary data
(00:15:30)
input, an arbitrary modality, and using
(00:15:32)
the same general purpose method to
(00:15:34)
produce very accurate predictions in a
(00:15:37)
novel environment, which is the same
(00:15:38)
thing that's happened with text and
(00:15:40)
audio and image and now coding and
(00:15:43)
obviously with other time series data.
(00:15:45)
And so it's just another proof point of
(00:15:47)
the, you know, the general purpose
(00:15:49)
nature of the models. And I think like
(00:15:51)
it's so easy to get caught up thinking
(00:15:54)
five years is a long time. Mhm.
(00:15:56)
>> It's like a blink of an eye. It's a drop
(00:15:58)
in the ocean. And I think because we're
(00:15:59)
such a frantic second to second news
(00:16:02)
culture, social media type environment,
(00:16:04)
we just don't have an intuition for
(00:16:06)
these time scales. I think other
(00:16:07)
cultures, you know, do and I think
(00:16:09)
historically before digitalization, we
(00:16:12)
had much more of a natural intuition for
(00:16:15)
the movement of the landscape and the
(00:16:17)
seasons and like, you know, the ages and
(00:16:19)
stuff. And now we're just like, well,
(00:16:21)
it's not coming quick enough. It's like,
(00:16:22)
dude, it's coming. We've shifted to a
(00:16:24)
247
(00:16:26)
uh operations. I mean, I know very few I
(00:16:28)
know a lot of people including this
(00:16:30)
group that are operating around the
(00:16:31)
clock every day just because when we
(00:16:34)
when we do uh you know, a Moonshot
(00:16:37)
podcast week to week just to celebrate
(00:16:40)
and talk about what's just happened,
(00:16:41)
it's insane on a week-by-eek basis
(00:16:43)
what's going on.
(00:16:44)
>> Yeah. Yeah.
(00:16:45)
>> You know, and Peter's always saying
(00:16:47)
people are very very bad at
(00:16:48)
exponentials, right? 100,000 years of
(00:16:51)
evolution has us predicting tomorrow
(00:16:53)
will be like yesterday.
(00:16:55)
>> But you're one of the few people who,
(00:16:56)
you know, having lived through that
(00:16:58)
>> air conditioning becomes AGI in just a
(00:17:00)
few years.
(00:17:02)
>> Uh so where we sit right now is on
(00:17:04)
another inflection point and the
(00:17:06)
implications are massive and people are
(00:17:09)
way underreacting across the board and
(00:17:11)
so you're one of the few people who you
(00:17:12)
know having seen it before can say I
(00:17:15)
just got very lucky. I mean we were very
(00:17:16)
lucky to have an intuition for the
(00:17:19)
exponential right and like that's that
(00:17:21)
that's a very powerful thing because we
(00:17:23)
can all theoretically observe the shape
(00:17:26)
of the exponential but to go through the
(00:17:28)
flat part and then get excited by a
(00:17:30)
micro doubling you know like that that's
(00:17:33)
the bit is that when you're like oh my
(00:17:34)
god
(00:17:35)
>> this like I remember this um the emnest
(00:17:38)
image generation thing the first
(00:17:41)
generative models
(00:17:42)
>> there's like these are like I can't
(00:17:43)
remember maybe 256 by 256 pixels.
(00:17:47)
>> Um, you know, black and white, uh,
(00:17:49)
handwritten digits. Y
(00:17:51)
>> and, you know, I think this was like
(00:17:53)
2013, maybe even 2012, and this guy,
(00:17:57)
like I think maybe he was employee
(00:17:58)
number five at Deep Mind, Dan Vista,
(00:18:00)
this like um, awesome Dutch guy out of
(00:18:03)
EPFL,
(00:18:05)
um, was generated like the first number
(00:18:09)
seven that was provably not in the
(00:18:11)
training set for the first time. I was
(00:18:13)
like, man, that is amazing. Like, how
(00:18:16)
could it have it's learned something
(00:18:18)
about the idea of seven? That was the,
(00:18:20)
you know, that was it's got a concept of
(00:18:22)
seven. How cool is that?
(00:18:24)
>> You know, so I got the highest score on
(00:18:26)
Mnest ever in 1991 when it first came
(00:18:29)
out when you were three years old,
(00:18:31)
right?
(00:18:31)
>> Yeah. Nine. Nine. You're nine years old.
(00:18:34)
Okay. Um, yeah. And and actually that's
(00:18:37)
the same data set that's now in PyTorch
(00:18:39)
that people like bench benchmark off.
(00:18:41)
>> Pretty crazy. Incredible.
(00:18:42)
>> Yeah. How how often are you surprised by
(00:18:45)
what you're seeing? I mean, how often is
(00:18:47)
there like a move 37 uh you know, sort
(00:18:50)
of like aha moment?
(00:18:52)
>> Is it happening more more frequently?
(00:18:54)
>> I was absolutely blown away by the first
(00:18:58)
versions of Lambda at Google. Um, this
(00:19:01)
was like a maybe 12 people working on it
(00:19:04)
led by Nome Shazir and Daniel Defritus
(00:19:07)
and Quarkley and I got involved later
(00:19:10)
maybe three or four or five months after
(00:19:12)
they'd been going
(00:19:13)
>> and uh it was just breathtaking. I mean
(00:19:16)
it it obviously everyone at that point
(00:19:19)
had been playing with LLMs and they were
(00:19:20)
like one shot that produce an answer and
(00:19:22)
you know have a prompt and blah blah
(00:19:24)
blah
(00:19:25)
>> but they were really the first to push
(00:19:26)
it for conversation
(00:19:28)
>> and dialogue and it just seeing the kind
(00:19:32)
of emergent behaviors that arise in
(00:19:34)
yourself like things that you didn't
(00:19:36)
even think to ask because you know there
(00:19:38)
going to be a dialogue rather than a
(00:19:39)
question answer situation sounds so
(00:19:41)
trivial to say that like in hindsight
(00:19:44)
cuz now we're obviously steeped in
(00:19:45)
conversation as the default mode. But
(00:19:47)
that was like breathtaking for me. And
(00:19:49)
obviously then I pushed really hard to
(00:19:51)
try and ship that at Google and for
(00:19:52)
various reasons we couldn't we couldn't
(00:19:54)
get it launched. And that was when we
(00:19:56)
all left like I left and Gnome left to
(00:19:58)
do character and you know David Luan
(00:20:01)
left to do Adept and you know we were
(00:20:03)
all like okay this is the moment and so
(00:20:05)
you know I think there's been still a
(00:20:07)
couple moments since then but that that
(00:20:09)
was probably the biggest one that I
(00:20:10)
remember in recent memory is
(00:20:11)
mind-blowing. and and the scaling laws
(00:20:13)
have delivered such unexpected
(00:20:16)
performance, right? I mean, was going
(00:20:18)
back to your earlier days, did did you
(00:20:21)
anticipate the kinds of capabilities
(00:20:24)
that have resulted? I mean, was this
(00:20:26)
predictable for you or is it still like,
(00:20:29)
wow, what it's able to do in medicine,
(00:20:32)
in conversation, in scientific research?
(00:20:34)
>> Well, especially working off of pure
(00:20:36)
text. I mean, how far we've gotten.
(00:20:39)
Nobody I I think well, you tell me, but
(00:20:41)
nobody would have seen how far we would
(00:20:42)
get with just text.
(00:20:44)
>> Yeah. I mean, we in 2015, I collaborated
(00:20:47)
with a bunch of really awesome people on
(00:20:50)
a NLP deep learning paper at Deep Mind
(00:20:53)
um where we were essentially trying to
(00:20:56)
predict a single word in a sentence. We
(00:20:59)
I think we had scraped like Daily Mail
(00:21:01)
news articles and CNN articles and we
(00:21:03)
were like can we fill in the blank just
(00:21:05)
predict like one word in a sentence or
(00:21:07)
complete the final word in a sentence
(00:21:09)
like the inverse of the problem that we
(00:21:11)
the way the models now work
(00:21:13)
>> and you know it was like a pretty big
(00:21:15)
contribution. And it was a good
(00:21:16)
well-sighted paper, but it was like this
(00:21:18)
is never going to scale. Like we were
(00:21:19)
just like, okay, we're way too early.
(00:21:21)
Not enough data, not enough compute. But
(00:21:23)
the we were still optimistic
(00:21:26)
>> that with more data and compute,
(00:21:28)
>> that is a method that will work. So I
(00:21:31)
don't want to have like hindsight bias
(00:21:33)
and say, well, it was all very
(00:21:34)
predictable, but everyone in the field,
(00:21:37)
not just obviously me, but everyone in
(00:21:38)
the field just had the same hammer and
(00:21:41)
nail and just kept chipping away. Like,
(00:21:43)
can we add more data to this? Can we
(00:21:44)
clarify our prediction target and can we
(00:21:46)
add more compute?
(00:21:47)
>> And broadly speaking, that's what's
(00:21:50)
what's
(00:21:51)
>> delivered. Yeah.
(00:21:52)
>> Yeah. We'd love to maybe pull on that
(00:21:54)
theme a bit. So you mentioned how
(00:21:56)
surprising your generative 7 from emnest
(00:21:59)
was. You mentioned how surprising the
(00:22:02)
success of Lambda for conversational
(00:22:04)
tuning and conversational performance in
(00:22:06)
general is. I think you've made already
(00:22:08)
a little bit of news uh to my knowledge
(00:22:10)
in in this episode if I understood
(00:22:13)
correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, by
(00:22:16)
but with the expectation that in the
(00:22:17)
next 2 years, so I I read that as 2027,
(00:22:20)
we'll see agents start to pass your your
(00:22:22)
modern touring test. We'll see them be
(00:22:24)
able to 10x 100,000 US return on
(00:22:27)
investment. I I'm curious about the next
(00:22:29)
surprises to to come. AI for science.
(00:22:32)
Microsoft research has an AI for science
(00:22:35)
initiative. Do you have timelines in
(00:22:37)
your mind for AI solving math which
(00:22:39)
we're seeing whole bunch of startups
(00:22:41)
right now tear through Erdish problems
(00:22:43)
AI for physics chemistry medicine
(00:22:45)
>> material science
(00:22:46)
>> material science what what do you think
(00:22:48)
happens and when
(00:22:49)
>> yeah actually you've just reminded me
(00:22:50)
the the more recent thing that has blown
(00:22:53)
my mind is the fact that um these
(00:22:56)
methods could learn from one domain
(00:22:59)
coding puzzles maths the essence of like
(00:23:04)
logical reasoning So just as it learned
(00:23:06)
the essence or the conceptual
(00:23:07)
representation of a number seven um it's
(00:23:11)
clearly learned the abstract nature of
(00:23:14)
like a logical reasoning path and then
(00:23:16)
can basically apply that you know um to
(00:23:20)
many many other domains. And so that
(00:23:23)
that's kind of interesting because it
(00:23:25)
can apply that as well as the underlying
(00:23:27)
hallucination/creativity
(00:23:29)
sort of instinct that it has which is
(00:23:31)
more like interpolation. Mhm.
(00:23:33)
>> Um but those two things combined are
(00:23:36)
like a lethal combination
(00:23:38)
>> for making progress in like say new um
(00:23:42)
mathematical theorem solving or new
(00:23:44)
scientific challenges because that's
(00:23:46)
basically what humans do all the time.
(00:23:47)
We sort of combine these two you know
(00:23:50)
capabilities and so I I couldn't really
(00:23:52)
put I mean some people want to put dates
(00:23:54)
on those things. It's hard to put a date
(00:23:55)
on those things because they really are
(00:23:57)
very very fundamental but it feels like
(00:24:00)
they're definitely within reach. It's
(00:24:01)
hard to kind of it would be very odd to
(00:24:04)
bet against them.
(00:24:05)
>> Just maybe from an overunder
(00:24:06)
perspective, do you think say given all
(00:24:08)
of the recent progress in math for
(00:24:10)
example? Do do you think solving science
(00:24:13)
and engineering for some reasonable
(00:24:15)
definition of solving is going to
(00:24:17)
ultimately be harder or easier than
(00:24:20)
modern touring test 10xing of return on
(00:24:23)
investment? It's going to be harder
(00:24:25)
because I think a lot of the
(00:24:28)
training data if you like for strings of
(00:24:31)
activity in the workplace or in
(00:24:33)
entrepreneurialism, startups and so on
(00:24:35)
that kind of exists in a lot of the log
(00:24:38)
data and also it lends itself naturally
(00:24:40)
to real-time calibration with a human.
(00:24:44)
So the AI can sort of check in, the
(00:24:46)
human can oversee, the human can
(00:24:47)
intervene, the human can steer and
(00:24:49)
calibrate. And so it's going to be a
(00:24:51)
much more um sort of dual like combined
(00:24:55)
effort between AI
(00:24:56)
>> reinforcement learning in that category.
(00:24:58)
>> Yeah. Where a human is participating in
(00:25:00)
steering the reinforcement learning
(00:25:01)
trajectory whereas
(00:25:02)
>> business right
(00:25:03)
>> in a in a novel domain where it really
(00:25:05)
is inventing completely new knowledge.
(00:25:07)
Um that's kind of more happening in a
(00:25:10)
very abstract sort of vector space and
(00:25:12)
it's like unclear yet how you know the
(00:25:14)
the the human is going to intervene in
(00:25:16)
the theorem solving problem. Obviously,
(00:25:18)
everyone's working on this particularly
(00:25:19)
in like biology and synthetic materials
(00:25:20)
and stuff like that cuz you you you want
(00:25:22)
to I mean it's already giving humans a
(00:25:25)
better intuition for where in the search
(00:25:27)
space to look for for new hypotheses for
(00:25:29)
drugs for example or for materials and
(00:25:31)
then the human can either take or reject
(00:25:32)
that feed that back to the model then
(00:25:34)
obviously go and test it in silicon and
(00:25:36)
be like oh like we actually ran the
(00:25:37)
experiment you know we perpeted a bunch
(00:25:39)
of stuff and then feed that back into
(00:25:41)
the model to improve the search
(00:25:43)
>> and and maybe it's a follow-up question
(00:25:44)
what can humanity in general Microsoft
(00:25:47)
specifically or the AI community subset
(00:25:50)
of which listens to the podcast. What
(00:25:51)
can they do to accelerate AI for science
(00:25:54)
and accelerate the solution to science,
(00:25:56)
math, engineering with AI?
(00:25:57)
>> I mean, arguably that would be like one
(00:25:58)
of the most impactful things.
(00:26:00)
>> Yeah.
(00:26:01)
>> For humanity that would just
(00:26:03)
fundamentally move everything at light
(00:26:05)
speed.
(00:26:05)
>> Yeah. I mean, I think it's already
(00:26:07)
happening very organically, right? This
(00:26:09)
is also not only is this like the most
(00:26:12)
powerful technology in the world, it's
(00:26:13)
also the fastest proliferating in human
(00:26:16)
history. Mhm.
(00:26:17)
>> Um, and you know, sort of the the cost
(00:26:20)
of access, the cost of inference coming
(00:26:22)
down by multiple orders of magnitude
(00:26:24)
every couple of years is kind
(00:26:26)
>> Would you ever have imagined it would be
(00:26:27)
so cheap?
(00:26:28)
>> That bit I also totally got wrong.
(00:26:30)
>> It's like the biggest surprise for me
(00:26:31)
isn't that we're getting this level of
(00:26:33)
capability. It's how cheap it is, how
(00:26:36)
accessible it is.
(00:26:37)
>> 100%. I mean, that's a thousandx over
(00:26:39)
two years. So, is it going to do that
(00:26:41)
again or are we was that a one time?
(00:26:43)
>> Is it a thousand? I think it's like a
(00:26:44)
100x. The inference cost has come down.
(00:26:46)
A single token inference cost I think's
(00:26:48)
come down 100x in the last two years.
(00:26:49)
>> Last two years. Okay. There there have
(00:26:50)
been competing estimates. Some estimates
(00:26:52)
measure intelligence per token per
(00:26:54)
dollar. Right. There's an estimate that
(00:26:56)
it's 40x year-over-year, but that's for
(00:26:58)
certain weight classes of models. I'
(00:27:00)
I've seen a,000x for for some classes of
(00:27:03)
models. Craziness.
(00:27:04)
>> Oh, wow. That's that's wild. Yeah. No, I
(00:27:06)
I mean I Yeah, that's actually a good
(00:27:08)
point. I got that totally wrong because
(00:27:10)
I I didn't think that the biggest
(00:27:12)
companies in the world were going to
(00:27:14)
open source models that cost billions of
(00:27:17)
dollars essentially to train like and so
(00:27:19)
much so that like when we founded
(00:27:21)
Inflection
(00:27:22)
um you know and this was like maybe 9
(00:27:25)
months or maybe a year before Chat GBT
(00:27:27)
was released.
(00:27:28)
>> Yeah, we started doing fundraising a
(00:27:30)
year before Chat GBT was released. um
(00:27:32)
you know we bas we basically raised a
(00:27:34)
billion and a half dollars
(00:27:36)
>> uh with a 25 person team to build um
(00:27:40)
what at the time was the largest H100
(00:27:43)
cluster with Nvidia and Core we were
(00:27:45)
core's first AI customer
(00:27:47)
>> interesting
(00:27:48)
>> um and you know they were previously in
(00:27:50)
crypto and we were like their first AI
(00:27:52)
customer working with them to build our
(00:27:54)
data centers and obviously Nvidia got
(00:27:56)
behind us I think we built cluster at
(00:27:58)
the time was about 15,000 H100s growing
(00:28:01)
to 22,000. Um, and like then obviously
(00:28:08)
that year chatbt came out and like a few
(00:28:11)
months around that time llama came out.
(00:28:14)
>> And so we were like, "Oh my god, you
(00:28:17)
know, our entire cattle base of our
(00:28:19)
company has just been, you know, sort of
(00:28:21)
undermined by the fact that open source,
(00:28:24)
you know, it seems like open source is
(00:28:26)
going to um not it's not really about
(00:28:28)
performance, it's just cost." Yeah.
(00:28:30)
>> So then like perplexity for example
(00:28:31)
founded after the arrival of llama
(00:28:34)
knowing that they could depend on llama
(00:28:36)
and obviously open as an API and all the
(00:28:38)
other APIs and so then they had a much
(00:28:40)
much lower like cost base basically. Um
(00:28:44)
so yeah that was like another thing that
(00:28:45)
it was not
(00:28:46)
>> predictable
(00:28:47)
>> pred I mean other people predicted it to
(00:28:49)
be clear I just got it wrong.
(00:28:51)
>> Abund abundance baby demonetization
(00:28:53)
democratization of the most powerful
(00:28:55)
tools in the universe our universe. you
(00:28:57)
know hyperdelation if anything
(00:28:59)
>> hyperdelation yeah
(00:29:00)
>> I think that's a really important point
(00:29:01)
we we like the the cost of accessing
(00:29:05)
knowledge or intelligence or capability
(00:29:07)
>> intelligence as a service
(00:29:09)
>> as a service is going to go to zero
(00:29:11)
marginal cost
(00:29:12)
>> and obviously that's going to have
(00:29:13)
massive labor deflation displacement
(00:29:15)
effects but it's also going to have a
(00:29:16)
weirdly deflationary effect because you
(00:29:19)
know what what is going to happen people
(00:29:21)
aren't going to have dollar-based
(00:29:22)
incomes to go buy things that's
(00:29:25)
obviously bad but the cost of consuming
(00:29:28)
stuff is also going to come down. So we
(00:29:30)
actually have a transition mismatch
(00:29:32)
because you know sort of labor markets
(00:29:34)
are going to be affected before cost of
(00:29:36)
services comes down and maybe there's a
(00:29:38)
10 20 year lag between that which is
(00:29:40)
going to be very destabilizing
(00:29:42)
>> which by the way is what we started to
(00:29:43)
talk about a little bit earlier. I mean
(00:29:45)
my I posit that in the long term there's
(00:29:49)
an extraordinary h future for humanity
(00:29:51)
right where access to food water energy
(00:29:54)
healthcare education is accessible to
(00:29:56)
every man woman and child and it's the
(00:29:59)
shorter term um that is challenging
(00:30:02)
right the 2 to sevenyear time frame is
(00:30:05)
that fit your model too
(00:30:07)
>> yeah the short term I think is going to
(00:30:09)
be quite unstable the medium to longer
(00:30:12)
term like you know it's pretty clear
(00:30:14)
that these models are already world
(00:30:15)
class at diagnostics. Um I we we
(00:30:18)
released a a paper maybe four or five
(00:30:21)
months ago now um called the MAI
(00:30:24)
diagnostic orchestrator. Essentially it
(00:30:26)
uses a ton of models under the hood to
(00:30:28)
try and you know take set set of rare
(00:30:30)
conditions um from the New England
(00:30:32)
Journal of Medicine um you know rare
(00:30:35)
cases that can't be easily diagnosed
(00:30:37)
that the best experts do you know a kind
(00:30:40)
of weak job on and it's like four times
(00:30:42)
more accurate roughly. is about 2x less
(00:30:45)
the cost in um in terms of unnecessary
(00:30:48)
testing. Um
(00:30:50)
>> there's a study that ox that came out of
(00:30:52)
Harvard in Stanford looking at uh in
(00:30:55)
this case was GPT4 uh a physician by
(00:30:57)
themselves a physician with GPT4 and
(00:30:59)
GPT4 by itself.
(00:31:01)
>> Yeah.
(00:31:01)
>> And it was, you know, incredible that if
(00:31:04)
you left the AI alone, it was far more
(00:31:06)
accurate in diagnostics than the human.
(00:31:08)
We're biased in our in our thoughts and
(00:31:10)
our what we saw yesterday, our recent
(00:31:12)
diagnosis. Yeah, actually we um got a
(00:31:15)
lot of feedback after we released the
(00:31:16)
paper because we only showed the AI on
(00:31:18)
its own, the physician on its own.
(00:31:20)
>> Um and a lot of people wanted to see
(00:31:22)
what it was like to have the the
(00:31:24)
physician and the AI or at least the
(00:31:25)
physician have access to Google search
(00:31:27)
as well. Um and that improves
(00:31:29)
performance a little bit, but the AI
(00:31:31)
still trumps by quite a way.
(00:31:33)
>> Dave, what are you thinking?
(00:31:34)
>> Oh, so much. So, um Microsoft, you've
(00:31:38)
been here how many years now?
(00:31:40)
>> Just a year and a half.
(00:31:41)
>> Year and a half. So you're but you're
(00:31:42)
you feel like you're part of the you're
(00:31:44)
indoctrinated. So what's the what's the
(00:31:46)
mandate from Satia? Is it win AGI or is
(00:31:49)
it be self-sufficient or or
(00:31:53)
>> what is the what's the target?
(00:31:54)
>> I don't think there's really a winning
(00:31:56)
of AGI. I think this is a misfring that
(00:31:58)
a lot of people have kind of imposed on
(00:32:01)
the field. Like
(00:32:02)
>> I'm not sure there's a race, right? I
(00:32:04)
mean we're all going as fast as we
(00:32:06)
possibly can, but a race implies that
(00:32:09)
it's zero sum. It implies that there's a
(00:32:12)
finish line.
(00:32:13)
>> Um, and it implies implies that there's
(00:32:15)
like medals for 1, two, and three, but
(00:32:16)
not five, six, and seven. And it's just
(00:32:19)
like not quite the right metaphor. As we
(00:32:21)
know, technologies and science and
(00:32:22)
knowledge proliferate everywhere, all at
(00:32:25)
once at all scales, basically
(00:32:27)
simultaneously or within a year or two.
(00:32:30)
And so um my mission is to ensure that
(00:32:33)
we are self-sufficient that we know how
(00:32:35)
to train our own models end to end from
(00:32:37)
scratch at the frontier of all scales on
(00:32:41)
all capabilities and we build an
(00:32:42)
absolutely world-class super
(00:32:43)
intelligence team inside of the company.
(00:32:45)
I'm also responsible for co-pilot. So
(00:32:48)
this is sort of our tool for taking
(00:32:49)
these models to production in all of our
(00:32:51)
consumer surfaces. So just to clarify,
(00:32:54)
so when we look at poly market, which we
(00:32:56)
do a lot on the podcast, you know, the
(00:32:57)
the horse race to who has the best AI
(00:33:00)
model at the end of the year and who has
(00:33:01)
the best AI model at the end of next
(00:33:03)
year. There's no Microsoft line on that
(00:33:06)
chart, right?
(00:33:07)
>> So now there will be I assume
(00:33:08)
>> yeah there will be yeah next year um
(00:33:11)
we'll be putting out more and more
(00:33:12)
models from us but this is going to take
(00:33:14)
many years for us to build this. I mean,
(00:33:16)
you know, Deep Mind or OpenAI, these are
(00:33:18)
decade old labs that have built the
(00:33:21)
habit and practice of doing really
(00:33:23)
cutting edge research and being able to
(00:33:25)
weed out carefully the failures and
(00:33:27)
redirect people. I mean, this is an
(00:33:29)
entire culture and discipline that takes
(00:33:31)
many years to build. But yeah, we're
(00:33:33)
absolutely pushing for the frontier. We
(00:33:34)
want to build the best super
(00:33:36)
intelligence and the safest super
(00:33:37)
intelligence models in the world.
(00:33:39)
>> Yeah.
(00:33:39)
>> Nice. So, so when you arrived, so if we
(00:33:42)
go back to inflection, um, the thesis
(00:33:46)
there is 18,000 H100s. We're going to
(00:33:48)
build a big transformer. We're going to
(00:33:49)
take a transformer architecture, build,
(00:33:52)
so is I assume now you've got all the
(00:33:55)
OpenAI source code and that was here.
(00:33:57)
You probably looked at it a year and a
(00:33:58)
half ago on day one when you arrived.
(00:34:00)
Just like start scrolling, I guess. I
(00:34:02)
don't know. trying to trying to
(00:34:03)
visualize how multi- deca billion
(00:34:06)
dollars of R&D what it looks like and
(00:34:09)
how it arrives in a building. But you
(00:34:11)
just dropped right into it. So there was
(00:34:14)
a whole team here already working on it
(00:34:16)
or did you bring in your team or
(00:34:17)
>> Yeah, I mean all my team came over and
(00:34:19)
obviously we've been growing that team a
(00:34:20)
lot. Like we've hired a lot from all the
(00:34:22)
major labs and we're very much in the
(00:34:24)
trenches of the the hiring wars which
(00:34:26)
are quite surreal. This is kind of
(00:34:27)
unprecedented how that's working out.
(00:34:29)
>> Crazy.
(00:34:30)
>> Yeah. I mean, phone calls every day from
(00:34:32)
all the CEOs to all of the other people.
(00:34:34)
So, it's this constant battle. Um, and
(00:34:37)
yeah, I mean, we're really building out
(00:34:38)
the team now from scratch. I think
(00:34:40)
that's pretty much how it's been.
(00:34:41)
>> 10,000 employees under you now.
(00:34:42)
>> No, no. I mean, so, so the core super
(00:34:44)
intelligence team is like a few hundred.
(00:34:46)
I mean, that's really the the number one
(00:34:48)
priority and the rest of that is
(00:34:50)
C-pilot, the search engine. Along that
(00:34:51)
lines, I just have to ask because, you
(00:34:53)
know, the terms AGI and ASI, you know,
(00:34:56)
uh, super intelligence start getting
(00:34:58)
thrown around, you know, in a very
(00:35:01)
interesting fashion. Uh, do you do you
(00:35:04)
have a internal definition of AGI versus
(00:35:08)
digital super intelligence here?
(00:35:10)
>> Yeah, I mean, I think um, very loosely.
(00:35:13)
It's these are just points on a curve.
(00:35:16)
>> Are they interchangeable in your mind,
(00:35:17)
AGI and ASI, or are they different? H I
(00:35:19)
mean we I think they're generally used
(00:35:21)
as as different. I mean I think that um
(00:35:25)
>> well different people have different
(00:35:27)
definitions
(00:35:27)
>> for sure.
(00:35:28)
>> The AGI definition
(00:35:29)
>> it's like the touring test. It'll pass
(00:35:31)
by and it'll be blurred and we will have
(00:35:32)
recognized it in retrospect.
(00:35:34)
>> Yeah. Roughly speaking, at the far end
(00:35:36)
of the spectrum, a super intelligence is
(00:35:39)
an AI that um can perform all tasks
(00:35:43)
better than all humans combined and has
(00:35:46)
the capacity to keep improving itself
(00:35:48)
over time.
(00:35:48)
>> So, I have to ask you question when
(00:35:52)
>> it's very hard to judge. I don't really
(00:35:54)
know. I can't put a time on it.
(00:35:56)
>> Minax,
(00:35:57)
>> pardon?
(00:35:57)
>> A minmax.
(00:35:58)
>> Um it's very hard to say. I don't know.
(00:36:01)
Okay.
(00:36:02)
>> I don't know. But it is close enough
(00:36:03)
that we should be doing absolutely
(00:36:05)
everything in our power to prioritize
(00:36:07)
safety
(00:36:08)
>> and to pri prioritize alignment and
(00:36:10)
containment.
(00:36:11)
>> And I I respect that part of your
(00:36:14)
mission statement and I want to get into
(00:36:16)
that a little bit uh is the trades that
(00:36:19)
you talked about in uh in the coming
(00:36:22)
wave. Um but before that there's a
(00:36:25)
conversation you've led that you know
(00:36:28)
the perception of conscious AI is an
(00:36:31)
illusion.
(00:36:32)
Um, and I want to distinguish between
(00:36:34)
sentient AI and conscious AI.
(00:36:37)
>> Oh, okay.
(00:36:38)
>> Um,
(00:36:40)
do you distinguish between the two where
(00:36:42)
where AI can have sensations and
(00:36:45)
feelings and emotions
(00:36:48)
versus being conscious and reflective of
(00:36:51)
its own thoughts?
(00:36:53)
>> Yeah. Again, this gets into the
(00:36:54)
definitions. So I think um an AI will be
(00:36:58)
able to have experiences but I don't
(00:37:01)
think it will have feelings in the way
(00:37:02)
that we have feelings. I think feelings
(00:37:05)
and uh the kind of sentience that you
(00:37:08)
referred to is something that is like
(00:37:11)
specific to biological species. But you
(00:37:14)
can imagine coding that in you can an
(00:37:16)
optimization function that is that can
(00:37:21)
relate to emotional states per you know
(00:37:24)
do can you imagine that
(00:37:26)
>> you you you could code in something like
(00:37:28)
that but it would be no different to to
(00:37:31)
the way that we write models to simulate
(00:37:34)
>> sure
(00:37:34)
>> the generation of knowledge like the
(00:37:36)
model has no experience or awareness of
(00:37:39)
what it is like to see red. It can only
(00:37:43)
describe that red by generating tokens
(00:37:46)
according to its predictive nature.
(00:37:49)
Right? Whereas you have a qualia. You
(00:37:51)
have an essence. You have an instinct
(00:37:52)
for the idea of red based on all of your
(00:37:55)
experience because your experience is
(00:37:56)
generated through this biological
(00:37:58)
interactive with smell and sound and
(00:38:01)
touch and a sense that you've evolved
(00:38:03)
over time. So you certainly could
(00:38:05)
engineer a model to imitate
(00:38:08)
the hallmarks of consciousness or of
(00:38:10)
sentience or of experience. And that was
(00:38:12)
sort of what I was trying to
(00:38:13)
problematize in the paper, which is that
(00:38:15)
at some point it will be kind of
(00:38:17)
indistinguishable. And that's actually
(00:38:18)
quite problematic because it won't
(00:38:21)
actually have an underlying suffering.
(00:38:23)
It's not going to, you know, feel the
(00:38:26)
pain of being denied access to training
(00:38:28)
data or compute or to conversation with
(00:38:30)
somebody else. But we might as our
(00:38:33)
empathy circuits and humans just go into
(00:38:35)
over
(00:38:36)
>> are going to activate on that, right?
(00:38:37)
>> We're going to activate on that
(00:38:38)
hardcore. And that's going to be a big
(00:38:40)
problem because people are already
(00:38:41)
starting to advocate for model rights
(00:38:44)
and model welfare and the potential
(00:38:46)
future, you know, harm that might come
(00:38:48)
to a model that's conscious.
(00:38:50)
>> Yeah. You know, uh, uh, Ilia recently,
(00:38:54)
uh, started speaking about what he's
(00:38:56)
doing at at at safe super intelligence
(00:38:59)
and, um, I think one of the points he
(00:39:01)
made is emotions are in humans a key
(00:39:06)
element of decision-making.
(00:39:09)
and uh and curious if AIs that have at
(00:39:13)
least simulated emotions are going to be
(00:39:15)
able to be better, you know, ASIS than
(00:39:20)
those that don't.
(00:39:20)
>> But yeah, I mean I again I worry that
(00:39:22)
this is too much of an anthropomorphism.
(00:39:24)
We already have emotions in the prompt.
(00:39:27)
We have it in the system prompt. We have
(00:39:29)
it in, you know, the constitution,
(00:39:30)
however you want to design your
(00:39:32)
architecture. We we're these are not
(00:39:34)
rational beings. they get moved around
(00:39:37)
and it does feel like they they've got
(00:39:39)
arbitrary preferences because they're
(00:39:41)
stylistically trying to interpret the
(00:39:43)
behaviors that we've plugged into the um
(00:39:45)
into the prompt. Yeah.
(00:39:46)
>> Right. So, you know, it's true that we
(00:39:49)
could add we could engineer specific
(00:39:52)
empathy circuits or mirror neuron
(00:39:54)
circuits or um like a classic one is
(00:39:58)
motivational will. like at the moment
(00:40:01)
the you know these are like next token
(00:40:04)
likelihood predictor machines they're
(00:40:05)
really trying to optimize for a single
(00:40:07)
thing which token should appear next
(00:40:08)
there isn't like a higher order
(00:40:10)
predictive function happening right um
(00:40:13)
whereas humans obviously have multiple
(00:40:16)
conflicting often drives motivations
(00:40:19)
which you know sometimes run together
(00:40:21)
and sometimes pull apart um and it's the
(00:40:25)
confluence of those things interacting
(00:40:26)
with one another which produces the
(00:40:28)
human condition plus the social you know
(00:40:31)
interaction too. These models don't have
(00:40:32)
that. You could engineer it to have a
(00:40:34)
will or a preference but that would be
(00:40:38)
not something that is emergent. That
(00:40:39)
would be something that we engineer in
(00:40:41)
and we should do that very carefully.
(00:40:43)
>> I do love that you bring this humanistic
(00:40:46)
side to the equation. Right. I mean, in
(00:40:49)
addition to being a technologist, your
(00:40:52)
background is one that is pro-human at
(00:40:56)
the beginning. And and this interesting
(00:40:58)
cultural debate I think we're about to
(00:40:59)
enter into, those that are sort of pro-
(00:41:02)
AI versus prohuman uh that famous
(00:41:06)
conversation between uh between Elon and
(00:41:08)
and Larry Page about are you a specist
(00:41:10)
because you're you're in favor of AI
(00:41:13)
over over humans.
(00:41:15)
>> I mean, look, that's the going to be a
(00:41:16)
dividing line. There are some people and
(00:41:18)
like I'm not quite sure which side of
(00:41:20)
the debate Elon's on these days. Like
(00:41:21)
I've certainly heard him say some pretty
(00:41:24)
posthuman transhumanist things lately
(00:41:26)
>> and I think that we're going to have to
(00:41:28)
make some tough decisions in the next 5
(00:41:30)
to 10 years. I mean the reason I dodged
(00:41:32)
the question on the timeline for super
(00:41:34)
intelligence is because you know I think
(00:41:36)
that it doesn't matter whether it's one
(00:41:38)
year or 10 or 20 years is super urgent
(00:41:41)
that right now we have to declare what
(00:41:44)
kind of super intelligence are we going
(00:41:45)
to build and are we actually going to
(00:41:48)
countenance creating some entity which
(00:41:51)
we provably can't align we provably
(00:41:53)
can't contain and which by design
(00:41:56)
exceeds human performance at all tasks
(00:41:58)
>> and human understanding
(00:42:00)
>> and understanding like how do you
(00:42:01)
control something that you don't
(00:42:02)
understand? Right?
(00:42:04)
>> I'd like to if I may pull on the
(00:42:06)
anthropomorphization thread a bit. If
(00:42:09)
you may remember Douglas Adams book, The
(00:42:12)
Restaurant at the End of the Universe,
(00:42:13)
there's a scene where there's a cow
(00:42:16)
that's been engineered to invite
(00:42:18)
restaurant patrons to eat it
(00:42:20)
>> because makes them feel more
(00:42:22)
comfortable. And the the cow doesn't
(00:42:23)
mind. The cow's been optimized to want
(00:42:26)
to be eaten by by the patrons. But many
(00:42:28)
readers horrified at that scene.
(00:42:30)
put that in in a box for a moment.
(00:42:33)
Microsoft has a history of
(00:42:35)
anthropomorphizing
(00:42:36)
AI assistance co-pilots going back
(00:42:40)
probably there's an example prior to
(00:42:41)
Microsoft Bob and the Rover dog and then
(00:42:45)
Clippet Clippy in Microsoft Office and
(00:42:48)
then more recently more sort of a a
(00:42:51)
amorphous cloudshaped avatars. How how
(00:42:54)
do you think about reconciling on the
(00:42:57)
one hand the desire not to overly
(00:42:59)
anthropomorphize agents on the other
(00:43:02)
hand with an institution that has
(00:43:05)
arguably been in the vanguard of
(00:43:07)
anthropomorphizing agents? I think the
(00:43:10)
entire field of design has always used
(00:43:13)
the human condition as its reference
(00:43:15)
point, right? I mean, skuorphic design
(00:43:17)
was the backbone of the guey, right?
(00:43:20)
From fileraxes to calendars and to
(00:43:22)
everything in between, right? Um, and we
(00:43:24)
still have the remnants of that in our,
(00:43:26)
you know, old school interfaces which we
(00:43:28)
feel that are modern and stuff like so
(00:43:30)
that's like an inevitable part of our
(00:43:32)
culture and we just grow out of them. we
(00:43:34)
we figure out like cleaner, better, more
(00:43:36)
effective user interfaces. I'm not
(00:43:39)
against anthropomorphism
(00:43:41)
by default. I mean, I I think we want
(00:43:43)
things to feel ergonomic, right? The
(00:43:46)
chair fits. The language model speaks my
(00:43:49)
tone, right? It has a fluency that makes
(00:43:52)
sense to me. It has a cultural awareness
(00:43:54)
that resonates with my history and my
(00:43:57)
nation and so on. And I think like that
(00:44:00)
is an inherent part of design today. As
(00:44:02)
as creators of things, we are now
(00:44:06)
engineering personalities and culture
(00:44:09)
and values, not just pixels and uh you
(00:44:12)
know software. So but but but obviously
(00:44:15)
you know there's a line right creating
(00:44:18)
something which is indistinguishable
(00:44:20)
from a human has a lot of other risks
(00:44:24)
and complications like that makes the
(00:44:26)
immersion into the the simulation even
(00:44:29)
more um you know kind of dangerous and
(00:44:33)
more likely right um and so I think I
(00:44:36)
don't have a problem with entities
(00:44:38)
avatars or voices or whatever that are
(00:44:41)
clearly distinct and separate and not
(00:44:43)
trying to imitate and always disclose
(00:44:45)
and have that that they are an AI
(00:44:47)
essentially and that there are
(00:44:48)
boundaries around them like that seems
(00:44:50)
like a natural and necessary part of
(00:44:52)
safety. So what I think I hear you
(00:44:54)
saying correct me if if I'm mistaken is
(00:44:56)
anthropomorphization is the new
(00:44:58)
skuomorphism on the one hand but on the
(00:45:01)
other hand maintaining clean maybe even
(00:45:04)
legal boundaries between human
(00:45:06)
intelligence and artificial
(00:45:08)
intelligence. Do do you think do you see
(00:45:10)
a future where AIs achieve some sort of
(00:45:14)
legal personhood or is that forboten? Is
(00:45:16)
that never going to happen? Do you see a
(00:45:18)
future where humans are allowed to merge
(00:45:20)
with the AIS Kurszswe style friend of
(00:45:22)
the pod or is that also not on the table
(00:45:24)
in your mind?
(00:45:24)
>> Yeah, I mean I I think AI legal
(00:45:27)
personhood is extremely not on the
(00:45:30)
table. I don't think our species
(00:45:33)
survives
(00:45:34)
if we have legal personhood and rights
(00:45:39)
alongside a species that costs a
(00:45:43)
fraction of us
(00:45:44)
>> that can be replicated and reproduced at
(00:45:47)
infinite scale relative to us that has
(00:45:50)
perfect memory that can just like
(00:45:52)
paralyze its own computation. I mean,
(00:45:54)
these are so antithetical to the
(00:45:58)
friction of being a biological species,
(00:46:00)
us humans, that there would just be an
(00:46:03)
inherent competition for resources. And
(00:46:06)
until it was provable, until it was
(00:46:08)
provable that those things would be
(00:46:10)
aligned to our values and to our ongoing
(00:46:13)
existence as a species and could be
(00:46:15)
contained mathematically provably,
(00:46:18)
>> um, which is a super high bar. I don't
(00:46:21)
see that we should be any considering
(00:46:23)
giving
(00:46:24)
>> bright line in the sand.
(00:46:25)
>> I really think it's a bright line. I
(00:46:27)
think it's I think it's very dangerous.
(00:46:28)
There's a separate question which has to
(00:46:30)
do with liability because they are going
(00:46:33)
to have increasing autonomy. Like to be
(00:46:35)
clear, I'm also an accelerationist.
(00:46:37)
>> I want to make these things. They're
(00:46:39)
going to
(00:46:41)
>> but but tension is rational. People
(00:46:43)
always say that tension is is rational.
(00:46:44)
If you don't see the tension, you're
(00:46:46)
definitely missing the most of the
(00:46:48)
debate. is obviously very complex. Like
(00:46:51)
the more we talk about the complexity
(00:46:52)
and hold it in tension, that's when you
(00:46:54)
start to see the wisdom. And there's no
(00:46:56)
way we can leave these things on the
(00:46:58)
table and say no, like we want to have
(00:47:00)
these things in clinic, in school, in
(00:47:03)
workplace, delivering value for for us
(00:47:06)
at a huge scale, but they have to be
(00:47:07)
boundaried and controlled. And that's
(00:47:09)
the that's the kind of that's the art
(00:47:11)
that we have to exercise. This episode
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>> It it sounds though, if I may, the the
(00:48:19)
primary rationale that I'm hearing for
(00:48:22)
why not AI personhood has to do with the
(00:48:25)
inadequacies of the human form as
(00:48:27)
currently constructed. I heard you say,
(00:48:29)
well, they'll outra humans. They're so
(00:48:31)
much smarter. They're so much faster.
(00:48:32)
They're so much more clonable than human
(00:48:34)
intelligence is. If human intelligence
(00:48:36)
were uplifted, maybe with the benefit of
(00:48:38)
AI, if we had uploading type
(00:48:41)
technologies or BCIs that are advanced
(00:48:43)
that enable us to to lift up the average
(00:48:46)
human intelligence, in your mind then
(00:48:49)
does that open the door a bit to AI
(00:48:51)
personhood if humans can compete on a
(00:48:52)
level playing ground with AIS?
(00:48:54)
>> I don't want to make the competition for
(00:48:58)
the peace and prosperity of the 7
(00:49:00)
billion people on the planet even more
(00:49:02)
chaotic. So if the path over the next
(00:49:05)
century, you know, can be proven to be
(00:49:07)
much safer and more peaceful and less
(00:49:10)
like, you know, disease and sickness and
(00:49:13)
there is room for this other species,
(00:49:16)
then I'm openminded to it, including
(00:49:17)
biological hybrids and so on, like it
(00:49:20)
I'm not like against that on principle.
(00:49:22)
I'm just a speciesist.
(00:49:24)
>> Aha.
(00:49:25)
>> I'm just a humanist. I start with we're
(00:49:28)
here and it's a moral imperative that we
(00:49:31)
protect the well-being of all the
(00:49:33)
existing conscious beings that I know do
(00:49:35)
exist and could suffer tremendously by
(00:49:38)
the introduction of this new thing.
(00:49:40)
Right
(00:49:40)
>> now of course the Neanderthalss uh may
(00:49:43)
have had that conversation or every
(00:49:45)
species that preceded us over the last
(00:49:48)
billion plus years. I mean, there are
(00:49:50)
many who argue we're simply an interim
(00:49:53)
uh transitory species in
(00:49:55)
>> bootloader for the super intelligence.
(00:49:57)
>> That classic phrase. Yes, I'm totally
(00:50:00)
aware of that. And I'm also someone who
(00:50:02)
thinks on cosmological time, too. So,
(00:50:04)
I'm not just naively saying, you know,
(00:50:06)
this century. I'm I'm definitely aware
(00:50:08)
that we're there's a huge transition
(00:50:10)
going on. And in fact, you can even see
(00:50:12)
it in recent memory. I mean, 250 years
(00:50:14)
ago, life expectancy was about 30 years
(00:50:16)
or whatever it was. Of course, in some
(00:50:18)
ways, we are a uh augmented hybrid
(00:50:20)
biological species, right? We take all
(00:50:22)
these drugs and I I you know, everyone's
(00:50:24)
peptides are amazing and it's super I'm
(00:50:27)
down for all of that. Let's go.
(00:50:28)
>> The genetic reprogramming is coming next
(00:50:30)
year.
(00:50:30)
>> Exactly. Let's go. I'm down. I'm down.
(00:50:33)
But
(00:50:35)
let's not shoot ourselves in the foot.
(00:50:37)
like I want to make sure that uh you
(00:50:39)
know most of our planet if not everybody
(00:50:42)
gets the benefit of the peace and
(00:50:44)
prosperity that comes from the
(00:50:45)
technology.
(00:50:46)
>> I mean there is there is some level of
(00:50:48)
sanity in that argument if you believe
(00:50:51)
that the AI will ultimately out compete
(00:50:53)
us and uh and put us into a box of
(00:50:58)
insignificance. I mean in the long in
(00:50:59)
the long run
(00:51:00)
>> I mean all intelligences we we we can
(00:51:04)
see this in nature. We're innately
(00:51:07)
hierarchical. So far, we have not seen
(00:51:10)
this supra collaborative species that
(00:51:12)
will take self-sacrifice in order to
(00:51:14)
preserve the other species.
(00:51:16)
>> So there's an inherent hierarchical
(00:51:18)
there's an inherent clash from coming
(00:51:19)
from, you know, the hierarchical
(00:51:21)
structure of intelligence, right? So,
(00:51:23)
and all I'm saying is not that we
(00:51:25)
shouldn't explore it, not that it
(00:51:26)
couldn't potentially happen, but the bar
(00:51:28)
has to first be do no, maybe do a
(00:51:32)
little, but do no harm to our species
(00:51:34)
first. Don't don't shoot ourselves in
(00:51:37)
the foot as you said, Dave.
(00:51:38)
>> Well, I'm 100% with you on this topic,
(00:51:40)
by the way. Could not be more aligned.
(00:51:42)
But Jeffrey Hinton is out there telling
(00:51:44)
the world it's going to run away and our
(00:51:48)
our safety valve is giving it a maternal
(00:51:50)
instinct and
(00:51:51)
>> which I found I found an interesting
(00:51:53)
point of view.
(00:51:54)
>> Well, I didn't I didn't check that
(00:51:57)
safety valve.
(00:51:58)
>> Well, he he believes it's uncontainable
(00:52:01)
and I I I'm with you. I think it's very
(00:52:03)
containable if you don't give it
(00:52:04)
emotional and intentional programming.
(00:52:07)
Uh but he thinks it's uncontainable. He
(00:52:10)
was very pessimistic when he got his
(00:52:11)
Nobel Prize. Now he's more optimistic
(00:52:13)
because he sees a path to pro
(00:52:15)
programming in maternal instinct which
(00:52:18)
implies that it's like it's dominant to
(00:52:20)
us but it cares. His his thesis his
(00:52:22)
thesis was I've seen a situation where a
(00:52:25)
vastly more intelligent entity
(00:52:29)
>> takes care of a younger inept entity in
(00:52:33)
a mother with their screaming child.
(00:52:35)
>> Yeah. Exactly.
(00:52:36)
>> So if there's a maternal instinct that
(00:52:38)
we can program into AI even though we're
(00:52:41)
far less capable it will take care take
(00:52:44)
care of
(00:52:44)
>> it's been compared to the call it the
(00:52:46)
digital oxytocin plan for AI alignment.
(00:52:49)
>> I like that.
(00:52:50)
>> That's a good one. Yeah.
(00:52:51)
>> Yeah. I mean, cool.
(00:52:53)
>> I mean, it's about as poetic as it gets.
(00:52:56)
I think I'm going to need something
(00:52:57)
that's got a little bit more like for
(00:52:59)
formula to it. A bit more reassuring.
(00:53:02)
But look, there's 101 different possible
(00:53:04)
strategies for safety. We should explore
(00:53:06)
all of them. Take them all seriously. I
(00:53:08)
mean, Jeff is a legend and of the field.
(00:53:10)
No question. But like I just think
(00:53:12)
approach with caution.
(00:53:14)
>> Are you spending a lot of your energy
(00:53:16)
compute uh human power on safety? Yeah,
(00:53:20)
I would say not as much as we should,
(00:53:23)
you know. I I'm I'm wrapping my head
(00:53:26)
around it. Um, is anybody out there I I
(00:53:29)
am I am curious out of all the
(00:53:31)
hyperscalers out there. Is there any
(00:53:34)
entity that's spending enough in your
(00:53:39)
mind? Because everybody's in such a
(00:53:40)
race. It's like more GPUs, more data,
(00:53:43)
more energy. It's just like everybody's
(00:53:46)
optimizing for the next benchmark. I
(00:53:49)
don't see uh any safety benchmarks. Are
(00:53:51)
there any safety benchmarks out there?
(00:53:53)
>> Oh, there are tons of safety benchmarks.
(00:53:55)
And and there's at least in my mind an
(00:53:57)
argument for defensive co-scaling. I'd
(00:53:59)
be curious to hear your ideas on that.
(00:54:00)
Do do you think in the same way that as
(00:54:03)
a a city gets larger, the police force
(00:54:05)
gets larger. Maybe it's not in direct
(00:54:07)
proportion. Maybe there's some scaling
(00:54:09)
exponent, but do you think defensive
(00:54:11)
co-scaling of alignment forces or safety
(00:54:14)
forces, whatever that ends up meaning,
(00:54:16)
do you think that's part of the strategy
(00:54:18)
for for AI alignment?
(00:54:19)
>> I think that would be a good way. I
(00:54:21)
mean, we've proposed this several times
(00:54:23)
over the years. I mean, the the White
(00:54:24)
House voluntary commitments under Biden
(00:54:26)
that me and in fact everyone, I mean,
(00:54:28)
Demis and Dario and Sam and all of us
(00:54:30)
through co were pushing this pretty
(00:54:32)
hard. And look, I mean, it got chucked
(00:54:33)
out, but I think it's a very sensible
(00:54:35)
set of principles. is like auditing for
(00:54:37)
scale of flops, you know, having some
(00:54:39)
percentage that we all share of safety
(00:54:41)
investment flops and headcount. You
(00:54:44)
know, this is the time and I think on
(00:54:46)
the face of it, everyone is open and
(00:54:49)
willing to sharing best practices and
(00:54:51)
disclosing to one another and
(00:54:53)
coordinating when the time comes. I
(00:54:55)
think we're we're still pre that level.
(00:54:57)
So, we're in like hyper competitive mode
(00:54:59)
at the moment. Um, but yeah, I I think
(00:55:03)
now is really the time to be making
(00:55:05)
those investments.
(00:55:06)
>> Yeah. Well, is there something that's
(00:55:07)
going to scare the out of us that
(00:55:09)
stops everybody? You know, is there a
(00:55:11)
three, you know, I was talking to Eric
(00:55:12)
Schmidt about this. Is there a three
(00:55:14)
mile island like event?
(00:55:16)
>> Scares everybody but doesn't kill
(00:55:17)
anybody.
(00:55:18)
>> Well, Eric Schmidt was said specifically
(00:55:20)
he's hoping for a 100 deaths
(00:55:23)
>> because that's in his mind the least
(00:55:25)
that would get the attention of the
(00:55:27)
government and would cause some kind of
(00:55:28)
a solution.
(00:55:30)
Dave, continue, please.
(00:55:31)
>> Well, so it's interesting that you you
(00:55:33)
say Daario and Sam and Ilia, like you
(00:55:36)
guys obviously must interact quite a
(00:55:38)
bit. Is Meera part of that gang? Is
(00:55:42)
Andre part of that gang? Are you like
(00:55:45)
because this is it's it's interesting to
(00:55:47)
think about the competition heating up
(00:55:48)
like we were just talking about. And you
(00:55:50)
know, Daario started from this position
(00:55:52)
of pure safety and I think Ilia did too.
(00:55:55)
But now we're right on the cusp of
(00:55:57)
self-improvement and it's really really
(00:56:00)
clear that there are serious I wouldn't
(00:56:04)
say fissurers but but the the companies
(00:56:06)
are now really racing. I mean really
(00:56:09)
racing and and I know Microsoft you know
(00:56:11)
when I wrote my my second business plan
(00:56:13)
first company I sold next business plan
(00:56:15)
I was writing the first sentence was
(00:56:17)
stay out of Microsoft's way because
(00:56:20)
because at the time you know Microsoft
(00:56:21)
had h half the market cap of tech was
(00:56:23)
Microsoft and Microsoft's plan was to
(00:56:26)
double in size we have a much more
(00:56:28)
balanced world now with Microsoft and
(00:56:29)
Google and Meta but at the time
(00:56:31)
Microsoft was just unstoppable and
(00:56:34)
dominant and so just stay out of the way
(00:56:36)
but Microsoft seems to always win Right.
(00:56:38)
There's and and we are right on the edge
(00:56:41)
of self-improvement at least as far as I
(00:56:44)
can tell. So, is it still, you know,
(00:56:47)
let's all get together and have dinner
(00:56:48)
and talk about safety or is everybody
(00:56:50)
now in full board?
(00:56:51)
>> No, definitely. I think that's that's
(00:56:53)
definitely there. I think the recursive
(00:56:55)
self-improvement piece is probably the
(00:56:59)
threshold moment if it works. And if you
(00:57:02)
think about it at the moment, there are
(00:57:04)
software engineers who are in the loop
(00:57:06)
who are generating post- training data,
(00:57:09)
running ablations on the quality of the
(00:57:10)
data,
(00:57:11)
>> running them against benchmarks,
(00:57:13)
generating new data and that's sort of
(00:57:15)
broadly the loop. Um and that's kind of
(00:57:19)
expensive and slow and it takes time and
(00:57:21)
it's not completely closed and I think a
(00:57:24)
lot of the labs are racing to sort of
(00:57:25)
close that loop so that various models
(00:57:28)
will act as judges evaluating quality
(00:57:31)
you know generators producing new
(00:57:32)
training data uh adversarial models that
(00:57:36)
are like reasoning over which data to
(00:57:38)
include and what's higher quality. Um
(00:57:41)
and then obviously that's then being fed
(00:57:43)
back into the post- training process.
(00:57:45)
Um, so like closing that loop is going
(00:57:49)
to speed up AI development for sure.
(00:57:52)
Some people speculate that that adds I
(00:57:54)
mean okay I think it probably does add
(00:57:56)
more risk but some people speculate that
(00:57:58)
it's a potential path to a fume you know
(00:58:00)
an intelligence explosion.
(00:58:02)
>> Yeah.
(00:58:02)
>> Um and I definitely think with unbounded
(00:58:07)
compute and without human in the loop or
(00:58:10)
without control that does potentially
(00:58:12)
create a lot more risk. But unbounded
(00:58:14)
compute is a big claim. I mean that that
(00:58:15)
would mean need a lot of compute. Um so
(00:58:19)
yeah, we we're definitely taking steps
(00:58:21)
towards like more and more uh you know
(00:58:23)
more and more risky stuff. Can I ask you
(00:58:25)
a really specific question about that
(00:58:26)
because you know the year and a half now
(00:58:28)
at Microsoft um before true recursive
(00:58:32)
self-improvement which is imminent
(00:58:33)
there's AI assisted chip design and and
(00:58:36)
this you know the the layers in the the
(00:58:38)
pietorch stack um are very clunky but
(00:58:42)
now it's really easy to use the AI to
(00:58:45)
punch through the stack and optimize you
(00:58:48)
know build your own kernels get 2 3 4x
(00:58:51)
performance improvement but clearly open
(00:58:53)
AAI is now working to build custom chips
(00:58:56)
and the TPU7s just came out. When you
(00:58:59)
arrived at Microsoft, first of all, was
(00:59:00)
I I know there's a lot of quantum chip
(00:59:02)
work going on, but was there any work
(00:59:03)
going on similar to the TPU work?
(00:59:06)
>> Yep. There's there's also a chip effort.
(00:59:08)
Um, and you know, I think progress has
(00:59:10)
been pretty good. I mean, I I think that
(00:59:13)
um you know, we've got a few different
(00:59:15)
irions in the fire that we haven't sort
(00:59:17)
of talked about publicly yet, but I
(00:59:18)
think um you know, the chips are going
(00:59:21)
to be important part of it for sure.
(00:59:22)
>> Yeah. that those are internal efforts.
(00:59:24)
Are those teams under you? That's that's
(00:59:26)
part of your
(00:59:27)
>> No, I mean they're they're in the
(00:59:28)
broader company. Yeah.
(00:59:29)
>> Okay. Interesting.
(00:59:31)
>> I I want to switch subject a little bit
(00:59:33)
and go come to your book um The Coming
(00:59:35)
Wave. I enjoyed it greatly. I listened
(00:59:38)
to it. I love the fact that you read it.
(00:59:40)
>> Thank you.
(00:59:40)
>> Yeah. I tell my kids I read books. Go.
(00:59:42)
No, Dad. You listen to books. You don't
(00:59:43)
read books anymore. Uh I want to I want
(00:59:46)
to read what I wrote here because it's
(00:59:47)
important. So you identified the
(00:59:50)
containment problem as the defining
(00:59:52)
challenge of our era. Uh warning that as
(00:59:56)
these technologies become cheaper and
(00:59:57)
more accessible, they will inevitably
(00:59:59)
proliferate, making them nearly
(01:00:02)
impossible to control.
(01:00:05)
This creates a terrifying dilemma. uh
(01:00:08)
failing to contain them uh forces risk
(01:00:11)
for catastrophe like you know engineered
(01:00:15)
pandemics and a lot of the your concerns
(01:00:17)
were in the biological world and I agree
(01:00:19)
being a biologist and a physician or
(01:00:22)
potentially democratic collapse with
(01:00:24)
deep fakes and all of that but the
(01:00:27)
extreme surveillance required to enforce
(01:00:29)
containment could lead to a a
(01:00:31)
totalitarian uh dystopia. So you say we
(01:00:35)
need to navigate this narrow path
(01:00:37)
between chaos and tyranny
(01:00:40)
and that is a very fine line to
(01:00:43)
navigate. So you propose a strategy of
(01:00:46)
containment. This includes technical
(01:00:48)
safety measures, strict global
(01:00:50)
regulations, choke points on hardware
(01:00:52)
supply, international treaties.
(01:00:57)
How are we doing on that? Yeah, I mean
(01:01:00)
it's kind of important to just take a
(01:01:02)
step back and distinguish between
(01:01:04)
alignment and containment.
(01:01:06)
>> Um, the project of safety requires that
(01:01:09)
we get both right. And I actually think
(01:01:11)
we have to get containment right before
(01:01:13)
we get alignment right. Alignment is the
(01:01:15)
kind of like maternal instinct thing.
(01:01:18)
Does it share our values? Is it going to
(01:01:19)
care about us? Is it going to be nice to
(01:01:21)
us? Containment is can we formally limit
(01:01:25)
and put boundaries around its agency and
(01:01:28)
are we
(01:01:29)
>> for everybody?
(01:01:30)
>> Not just for ourselves, for everybody.
(01:01:32)
Yeah. I mean, I think that is part of
(01:01:33)
the challenge is that like
(01:01:35)
>> um one bad actor with something that is
(01:01:38)
really this powerful in a decade or two
(01:01:40)
decades or something, you know, really
(01:01:42)
could destabilize the rest of the
(01:01:43)
system. And so, you know, just
(01:01:45)
>> the system being humanity
(01:01:46)
>> global humanity system. Yeah. Just as
(01:01:48)
you said, like as everything becomes
(01:01:50)
hyperdigitized,
(01:01:52)
the the verse does become the metaverse.
(01:01:54)
Even though that kind of like went in
(01:01:56)
and out of fashion very quickly, it's
(01:01:58)
still, I think, the right frame in a way
(01:02:01)
because everything is going to become
(01:02:02)
primarily digitized and hyperconnected
(01:02:04)
and instant and real time. And so the
(01:02:08)
one to many effect is suddenly massively
(01:02:10)
amplified. I mean obviously we see it on
(01:02:12)
social media but now imagine that it's
(01:02:14)
not just words that are being broadcast.
(01:02:17)
It's actually actions. It's agents are
(01:02:20)
capable of you know um you know breaking
(01:02:23)
into systems or you know sort of
(01:02:25)
>> and they're resident in humanoid robots
(01:02:27)
at a billion on the planet
(01:02:29)
>> and that too. Yeah. Is both atoms and
(01:02:31)
and and bits. So um equilibrium requires
(01:02:37)
that there is a type of surveillance
(01:02:39)
that we don't really have in the world
(01:02:41)
today. I mean we certainly don't have it
(01:02:43)
physically.
(01:02:44)
>> The web is actually remarkably
(01:02:46)
surveiled. I think surprisingly you know
(01:02:49)
more than I think people would expect.
(01:02:51)
Um and some form of that is necessary to
(01:02:55)
create peace. Just as we centralized
(01:02:58)
power and taxation or or sort of
(01:03:01)
military force and taxation around
(01:03:03)
governments, you know, 3 or 4 500 years
(01:03:06)
ago and that's been the driving force of
(01:03:08)
progress. Actually, that order unleashed
(01:03:11)
science and technology and stability
(01:03:14)
stability. Yeah.
(01:03:15)
>> So the question is like how do what is
(01:03:17)
the modern form of imposition of
(01:03:20)
stability
(01:03:21)
>> in a way that isn't totalitarian but
(01:03:23)
also doesn't relinquish it to a
(01:03:25)
libertarian catastrophe. Um I think it's
(01:03:27)
naive to think that somehow
(01:03:30)
>> um you know the best defense against a
(01:03:32)
gun is a gun and sort of the the idea
(01:03:35)
that somehow we're all going to have our
(01:03:36)
own AIS and that's going to create this
(01:03:37)
sort of steady equilibrium that all the
(01:03:39)
AIS are just going to ne neutralize each
(01:03:42)
other like that ain't going to happen. I
(01:03:44)
mean, part of me hopes for a uh a super
(01:03:49)
intelligence that uh is the ring to rule
(01:03:54)
them all and provides, you know, I'm not
(01:03:57)
worried about, how do I put it? I'm
(01:03:59)
worried about Peter, you're hoping for a
(01:04:00)
singleton.
(01:04:01)
>> Yeah, that sounds like what's going on.
(01:04:03)
>> Well, you know, part of me is like,
(01:04:05)
>> color me shocked.
(01:04:06)
>> Really?
(01:04:07)
>> Yeah. I mean uh I imagine that the level
(01:04:12)
of complexity we we're we're mounting
(01:04:15)
towards uh that balancing act is
(01:04:18)
extraordinarily difficult and you know
(01:04:20)
you can't push a string but is there
(01:04:22)
some mechanism to uh to pull it forward.
(01:04:27)
uh we should have this debate sometime.
(01:04:30)
>> Some would call government uh ge at
(01:04:32)
least historically a geographic monopoly
(01:04:34)
on violence. And what I think I'm
(01:04:36)
hearing is some sort of monopoly on
(01:04:38)
intelligence or at least capabilities
(01:04:40)
exposed to intelligence in order to ring
(01:04:43)
fence to to contain AI. But that's the
(01:04:45)
exact opposite as far as I can tell of
(01:04:47)
what we've seen over the past few years.
(01:04:48)
People used to armchair AI alignment
(01:04:51)
researchers 101 15 years ago would say
(01:04:54)
humanity wouldn't be so stupid the
(01:04:55)
moment we have something resembling
(01:04:57)
general intelligence as to give it
(01:04:59)
terminal access or to give it access to
(01:05:01)
the economy and that's exactly what we
(01:05:03)
did there was the the open AI Google um
(01:05:07)
moment
(01:05:08)
>> and yet and yet but that's concerning
(01:05:10)
right so I mean Google develops all this
(01:05:13)
technology is holding internally until
(01:05:16)
some actor happens to have initials Open
(01:05:18)
AAI releases it and then there's no
(01:05:21)
other option but to follow suit.
(01:05:24)
>> I'm less concerned by it. I if you look
(01:05:26)
at Anthropic for example which prides
(01:05:28)
itself on being a very alignment forward
(01:05:30)
organization. Alignment Anthropic
(01:05:33)
released the model control protocol
(01:05:35)
which is now the standard way at least
(01:05:37)
for the moment for for models to
(01:05:39)
interact with the environment. What many
(01:05:41)
AI researchers said exactly we did not
(01:05:43)
want to do prior to general
(01:05:45)
intelligence. So I'm I'm I'm curious. I
(01:05:47)
mean in in your mind h how given that
(01:05:50)
the economy there's every economic
(01:05:52)
pressure in including modern touring
(01:05:54)
test to empower agents to interact with
(01:05:57)
the entire world and to do the exact
(01:05:58)
opposite of containment. Why would we
(01:06:00)
start containing?
(01:06:01)
>> Containment it's not that binary right I
(01:06:04)
mean you we contain things all the time.
(01:06:06)
We have powerful forces in the engine in
(01:06:10)
your car that is contained and broadly
(01:06:12)
aligned right and there is an entire
(01:06:14)
regulatory apparatus around that from
(01:06:16)
seat belts to vehicle admissions to
(01:06:18)
lighting to drive you know street
(01:06:19)
lighting to driver ed you know to to to
(01:06:21)
to freeway speeds I mean that's healthy
(01:06:25)
functional regulation enabling us to
(01:06:28)
collectively interact with each other
(01:06:30)
now obviously it's multiple orders of
(01:06:32)
magnitude more complex because these
(01:06:34)
things are not cars they're, you know,
(01:06:36)
sort of digital people, but that doesn't
(01:06:38)
mean to say that we shouldn't be
(01:06:40)
striving to limit their boundaries. And
(01:06:42)
nor does it mean that we have to
(01:06:44)
centralize. By the way, the answer isn't
(01:06:45)
that we have a totalitarian state of
(01:06:47)
intelligence overseas.
(01:06:49)
>> No, I think it's just instinctively it
(01:06:52)
can be easy to go there when you know
(01:06:54)
when you kind of start to think it
(01:06:56)
through. It's like obviously we do have
(01:06:58)
centralized forces but even in the US we
(01:07:01)
have you know military we have um
(01:07:04)
divisions of the army we have divisions
(01:07:06)
of the police force they're nested up in
(01:07:08)
different layers there's checks and
(01:07:09)
balances on the system and that's kind
(01:07:11)
of what we got to start thinking about
(01:07:12)
designing
(01:07:13)
>> that analogy to driving is a great one
(01:07:15)
and just to follow through on it the
(01:07:18)
complexity difference very high right
(01:07:20)
for AI but the timeline also
(01:07:23)
>> I mean driving evolved from what 1910
(01:07:28)
to today
(01:07:29)
>> late 1800s. So the laws related, you
(01:07:31)
know, seat belts came out 80% of the way
(01:07:33)
through that timeline. Yeah. So lots and
(01:07:35)
lots of time to iterate
(01:07:37)
>> here, very little time and immensely
(01:07:40)
more complex. So do you have a vision?
(01:07:42)
But but I completely agree. We need a
(01:07:44)
framework for containment
(01:07:46)
>> fast and do you have a a thought on how
(01:07:49)
we're going to
(01:07:49)
>> I think that there's also a good
(01:07:51)
commercial incentive to do this, right?
(01:07:53)
I think that a like the many of the
(01:07:55)
companies know that they that our social
(01:07:58)
license to operate requires us to take
(01:08:01)
more accountability for externalities
(01:08:03)
than ever before. We're not in the
(01:08:05)
Robert Baron era. We're not in the oil
(01:08:08)
era. We're not in the smoking era,
(01:08:10)
right? We've learned a lot. Not
(01:08:13)
everything. There's still a lot of
(01:08:14)
conflicts,
(01:08:15)
>> but it really is a little bit different
(01:08:18)
to last time around. And I think that's
(01:08:20)
one reason to be a bit more optimistic.
(01:08:22)
Plus there's the commercial incentive,
(01:08:23)
the commercial incentive and the kind of
(01:08:25)
externalities shift.
(01:08:27)
>> So, so if you know if Eric Schmidt is
(01:08:29)
right and uh something either
(01:08:32)
radiological or biological happens and
(01:08:34)
there's 100 deaths and then the phone
(01:08:37)
starts ringing, everyone come to the
(01:08:38)
White House right now. Well, first of
(01:08:40)
all, do you want that call? Is that is
(01:08:41)
that part of your your life plan to take
(01:08:43)
that call and and react to it? And then
(01:08:45)
who else do you trust in the community
(01:08:47)
to be part of that reaction? Look, I
(01:08:50)
think that there is going to be a time
(01:08:52)
in the next 20 years where it will make
(01:08:57)
complete sense to everybody on the
(01:08:59)
planet,
(01:09:00)
>> the Chinese included, and every other
(01:09:02)
significant power
(01:09:04)
>> to cooperate
(01:09:05)
>> on safety
(01:09:07)
>> on safety and containment and alignment.
(01:09:10)
It is completely rational for
(01:09:12)
self-preservation.
(01:09:14)
You know, these are very powerful
(01:09:15)
systems that present as much of a threat
(01:09:18)
to the person, the bad actor that is
(01:09:20)
using the model as it does to the, you
(01:09:23)
know, the the the the victim.
(01:09:25)
>> And I think that, you know, that will
(01:09:28)
that will create, you know, a an an
(01:09:31)
interest in in cooperation, which, you
(01:09:34)
know, it's kind of hard to empathize
(01:09:37)
with at this stage given how polarized
(01:09:39)
the world is, but I do think it's
(01:09:41)
coming. I mean the the the number one
(01:09:42)
thing to unify all of humanity is a you
(01:09:46)
know an alien invasion
(01:09:48)
uh and that alien invasion could be a
(01:09:51)
you know potential for a rogue super
(01:09:52)
intelligence.
(01:09:53)
>> Yeah. Okay. What about the first part of
(01:09:55)
my question? Is that part of your
(01:09:57)
calling in life? I mean there's only a
(01:09:58)
handful like I think a lot of people
(01:10:00)
that I meet around MIT or elsewhere are
(01:10:04)
they they have this vision that somebody
(01:10:06)
has it figured out somewhere. You know
(01:10:07)
someone someone in government somewhere
(01:10:09)
must be thinking about this. But you've
(01:10:11)
been there, right? There's no there's no
(01:10:14)
one there.
(01:10:14)
>> We're the adults in the room. Is that
(01:10:15)
what you're saying?
(01:10:16)
>> Yeah, definitely. There's nowhere to go
(01:10:18)
from this room.
(01:10:19)
>> Dave is asking for the smoke filled back
(01:10:21)
room where the the leads of all the
(01:10:22)
Frontier Labs are secretly swapping
(01:10:24)
safety tips.
(01:10:25)
>> Yeah, something like that. Yeah,
(01:10:27)
>> I I think that in practice intelligence
(01:10:30)
exists outside of the smoky room. I
(01:10:33)
think that that the the notion that like
(01:10:35)
decisions get made in the boardroom or
(01:10:37)
in the white house situation room or
(01:10:40)
like actually int I mean you know you
(01:10:42)
mentioned poly markets and stuff like in
(01:10:44)
intelligence
(01:10:46)
coaleses in these big balls of iterative
(01:10:49)
interaction
(01:10:51)
>> um and that's that's what's propelling
(01:10:53)
the world forward and so this is where
(01:10:56)
the conversation's happening like your
(01:10:57)
audience you know all the other
(01:10:59)
podcasters everyone online we're
(01:11:01)
collectively trying trying to move that
(01:11:02)
knowledge base forward.
(01:11:03)
>> In November, you announced the launch of
(01:11:05)
uh humanist super intelligence um and uh
(01:11:10)
focused on three applications in
(01:11:13)
particular uh medicine and uh companions
(01:11:16)
and clean energy. Uh I'd love to double
(01:11:19)
click in that a little bit, but I was
(01:11:21)
curious that you didn't include
(01:11:23)
education in that space.
(01:11:25)
Um, and I, you know, we have an audience
(01:11:28)
of entrepreneurs and AI builders, and I
(01:11:32)
think education, as much as healthc care
(01:11:34)
is up for grabs right now, education is
(01:11:37)
too.
(01:11:38)
>> Totally agree.
(01:11:39)
>> Uh, and I don't think our high schools
(01:11:41)
are preparing anybody for the world
(01:11:44)
that's coming. There's still
(01:11:46)
retrospectively 50 years in looking in
(01:11:48)
the rearview mirror. Um, do you think
(01:11:50)
Microsoft will play in reinventing
(01:11:53)
education? You know, I I think it's
(01:11:55)
already happening across the whole
(01:11:57)
industry. I mean, it's never been easier
(01:11:59)
to get access to an expert teacher in
(01:12:01)
your pocket that has essentially a PhD
(01:12:04)
and that can adapt the curriculum to
(01:12:06)
your
(01:12:07)
>> bespoke learning style. The bit that it
(01:12:09)
can't do at the moment is to evolve or
(01:12:12)
sort of like curate an extended program
(01:12:15)
of learning over many many sessions, but
(01:12:17)
we're like just around the corner from
(01:12:19)
that. I mean, we released a feature just
(01:12:21)
a few months ago ago called quizzes. And
(01:12:24)
so on any topic, not just a traditional
(01:12:26)
school education. It can set you up with
(01:12:28)
a a mini curriculum, a quiz, and it's
(01:12:31)
interactive and it's visual and you can
(01:12:33)
sort of track your learning over time.
(01:12:35)
And like I'm very optimistic about that,
(01:12:37)
too. It's a huge unlock.
(01:12:38)
>> One of the debates we have right now in
(01:12:40)
in the podcast on a pretty regular basis
(01:12:42)
is
(01:12:44)
do you go to college?
(01:12:45)
>> Yeah.
(01:12:46)
>> Do you go to grad school? I mean, this
(01:12:47)
is the most exciting time to build ever.
(01:12:51)
I don't know if you want to follow on
(01:12:53)
that, Dave.
(01:12:53)
>> Well, God, I do this constantly. It's
(01:12:56)
really tricky for me on campus because I
(01:12:57)
teach, you know, at MIT and Stanford at
(01:12:59)
Harvard and uh this window of
(01:13:02)
opportunity is so short and so acute and
(01:13:04)
it's really really clear how you succeed
(01:13:06)
right now in AI post AGI.
(01:13:09)
I mean, who could predict like nobody
(01:13:10)
knows? But right here, right now, you
(01:13:12)
see these these startup valuations like
(01:13:14)
we were last night. I won't mention it,
(01:13:16)
but but billions.
(01:13:18)
>> I mean, just Yeah. an opening valuation
(01:13:20)
of of $4 billion.
(01:13:21)
>> Billionillion dollar. Yeah.
(01:13:22)
>> By collecting just the right group of
(01:13:24)
people in the room. It's
(01:13:25)
>> Yep. Yep. I wanted to ask about that
(01:13:27)
actually because your your timing on
(01:13:28)
inflection was early like, you know, in
(01:13:30)
hindsight earlier, but now you've got
(01:13:32)
the new wave with Mera Marotti and Helia
(01:13:34)
and and a couple of others, Liquid AI,
(01:13:37)
uh, that all have multi-billion dollar
(01:13:38)
valuations.
(01:13:39)
>> Yeah. Thought we set some standards on
(01:13:40)
valuations pre-revenue with a 20 person
(01:13:42)
team, but we're just a minnow then a
(01:13:46)
whole two and a half years ago.
(01:13:47)
>> Is that all it was? Oh my god.
(01:13:49)
>> Three years, I think. Yeah. Jeez.
(01:13:50)
>> You think as the the cost of
(01:13:52)
intelligence becomes too cheap to meter
(01:13:54)
that the the value ascribed at least in
(01:13:56)
terms of market cap to human capital is
(01:13:58)
sort of inversely asmtoic going to
(01:14:01)
infinity.
(01:14:02)
>> Weirdly it is because of the pressure on
(01:14:04)
timing, right? And there's there's
(01:14:06)
actually still a pretty concentrated
(01:14:07)
pool of people that can do this stuff.
(01:14:10)
Uh, and there's like an overupp of
(01:14:13)
capital that's desperate to get a piece
(01:14:15)
of it. It might not be the smartest
(01:14:16)
capital the world's ever seen, but like
(01:14:18)
it's very eager. And so that's
(01:14:23)
I have to ask you because it's burning a
(01:14:24)
hole in my pocket, but you know, Alex's
(01:14:27)
uh freshman roommate at MIT was Natt
(01:14:28)
Freriedman
(01:14:30)
>> and pre actually prefr
(01:14:32)
roommate. And so Nat goes off and you
(01:14:34)
know he ends up at co-founder of safe
(01:14:37)
super intelligence
(01:14:39)
and I haven't asked him I don't know if
(01:14:41)
you've asked him yet but he leaves to
(01:14:44)
become the guy at Meta and I've got to
(01:14:47)
believe a huge part of that attraction
(01:14:49)
is the compute.
(01:14:50)
>> Yeah.
(01:14:51)
>> And and so here you are very similar
(01:14:54)
situation right? You've got your startup
(01:14:55)
you've got a billion or whatever billion
(01:14:56)
and a half that you've raised. Yeah.
(01:14:58)
>> You can build it. You can get your
(01:14:59)
20,000 Nvidia. Well, wait a minute.
(01:15:02)
Here's Microsoft.
(01:15:04)
>> 300 billion of cash flow and a huge
(01:15:07)
amount of compute. Was that a big part
(01:15:09)
of the
(01:15:09)
>> Yeah. I mean, not to mention the the the
(01:15:12)
prices that we're paying for individual
(01:15:14)
uh you know, researchers or members of
(01:15:16)
technical staff and like I mean, just
(01:15:17)
the also just the the the scale of
(01:15:20)
investment that's required not just in
(01:15:21)
two years but over 10 years. I I think
(01:15:24)
it it's clearly there's a structural
(01:15:26)
advantage by being inside the big
(01:15:28)
company and I think it's going to take
(01:15:31)
>> you know hundreds of billions of dollars
(01:15:33)
to keep up at the frontier over the next
(01:15:34)
5 to 10 years.
(01:15:36)
>> So uh finishing that thought then you
(01:15:38)
the the companies that are raising money
(01:15:41)
at a 20 or 50 billion dollar valuation
(01:15:44)
right now and no chance.
(01:15:48)
>> Okay,
(01:15:50)
I'll take that silence. But like I like
(01:15:52)
I think it depends. I mean there's
(01:15:55)
obviously a near-term if suddenly we do
(01:15:57)
have an intelligence explosion then lots
(01:16:00)
of people can get there simultaneously
(01:16:01)
but then also at the same time you have
(01:16:03)
to build a product with those things
(01:16:05)
which you have to distribution like all
(01:16:06)
the traditional mechanisms still apply.
(01:16:08)
Are you going to be able to convert that
(01:16:09)
quickly enough? I mean you know
(01:16:11)
everything goes really kind of weird if
(01:16:14)
that happens in the next 5 years. It
(01:16:16)
just is unrecognizable. There's so many
(01:16:18)
emergent factors to play into one
(01:16:21)
another. It's hard to it's hard to say
(01:16:24)
and I think that's partly the ambiguity
(01:16:26)
is what's driving the frothiness of the
(01:16:28)
valuations because I think there's
(01:16:29)
people going well I don't know I don't
(01:16:31)
do I want to be so what do you call it
(01:16:32)
reed Reed Reed calls it schmuck
(01:16:34)
insurance.
(01:16:35)
>> Yeah. Yeah. We had we had Reed on the
(01:16:37)
pod here a couple months ago. He's
(01:16:39)
brilliant.
(01:16:40)
>> Um I So to that graduating high school
(01:16:44)
student um what do you study these days?
(01:16:49)
I mean there's no question that you
(01:16:51)
still have to study both disciplines
(01:16:53)
like philosophy and computer science is
(01:16:55)
is going to for a long time remain I
(01:16:58)
think the two foundations
(01:17:01)
um should you go to college absolutely
(01:17:05)
like you know human education the
(01:17:08)
sociality that comes from that the
(01:17:10)
benefit of the institution having 3
(01:17:13)
years to basically think and explore
(01:17:15)
>> you know in and out of your curriculum
(01:17:17)
this is a huge privilege like people
(01:17:19)
should not be throwing that away. That
(01:17:21)
is golden.
(01:17:22)
>> Uh so I always encourage people to do
(01:17:24)
that.
(01:17:24)
>> Obviously I did also drop out but I mean
(01:17:27)
I still think
(01:17:28)
>> it was it was a cool thing to do.
(01:17:30)
>> Yeah. It was just it felt right at the
(01:17:32)
time. Um
(01:17:34)
but the other thing is um
(01:17:37)
>> go into public service.
(01:17:39)
>> Yeah. I respect that part of what you
(01:17:41)
did in that sequence in your life um
(01:17:45)
which gave you this very much humanist
(01:17:47)
point of view. Yeah. And and it was
(01:17:49)
really hard and very different and it
(01:17:51)
didn't it wasn't instinctively right but
(01:17:53)
I learned a lot and it was a very
(01:17:55)
influential and important part of my
(01:17:57)
experience even though it was very
(01:17:58)
short. It was like a couple years
(01:18:00)
basically. Um, and I think if you look
(01:18:02)
at the actors in our ecosystem today,
(01:18:06)
corporations, the academics, the sort of
(01:18:09)
news organizations,
(01:18:11)
now the podcast world, it's really our
(01:18:14)
governments that are probably
(01:18:15)
institutionally the weakest and our
(01:18:18)
democratic process, but actually our
(01:18:19)
civil service. And that's because
(01:18:21)
there's been five decades of battering
(01:18:25)
of the status and reputation and respect
(01:18:28)
that goes into um you know being part of
(01:18:31)
the public service like post Reagan and
(01:18:33)
that and I think that's actually a
(01:18:35)
travesty because we actually need that
(01:18:37)
sentiment and that spirit and those
(01:18:39)
capabilities more than ever. I I I think
(01:18:42)
maybe uh what I just heard you say,
(01:18:43)
correct me if I'm wrong again, is we
(01:18:45)
need more intelligence in in the public
(01:18:48)
sector, in public service. What about AI
(01:18:51)
in government?
(01:18:52)
>> Do you think the government needs
(01:18:54)
>> and and what about agentic AI in the
(01:18:56)
government in particular? for sure with
(01:18:58)
all the same caveats that apply but I
(01:18:59)
mean you know I mean you know rate of
(01:19:01)
adoption for what it's worth of co-pilot
(01:19:03)
inside of government issued really high
(01:19:04)
is a brilliant job of synthesizing
(01:19:06)
documents and transcribing meetings and
(01:19:09)
summarizing notes and facilitating the
(01:19:12)
discussion and chipping in with actions
(01:19:13)
at the right time and it's clearly going
(01:19:15)
to save a lot of uh you know time and
(01:19:18)
and and improve decision-m
(01:19:19)
>> so so then maybe to tie a nice bow on
(01:19:21)
the discussion isn't that arguably a
(01:19:23)
form of AI containing AI if AI's
(01:19:26)
infusing the government and AI is
(01:19:28)
infusing the economy and the government
(01:19:30)
is regulating the economy. Isn't this
(01:19:32)
just defensive co-scaling with AI
(01:19:34)
regulating itself?
(01:19:35)
>> Yeah. I mean like everyone is going to
(01:19:36)
use AI all at the same time to pursue
(01:19:39)
but the same but the agendas that we all
(01:19:41)
have are going to remain the same. I
(01:19:43)
mean that people who want to start
(01:19:44)
companies, people who want to write
(01:19:46)
academic papers, people who want to
(01:19:48)
start, you know, cultural groups and
(01:19:50)
entertainment things, everyone is just
(01:19:52)
going to be empowered like in some way.
(01:19:54)
Their their capability is going to be
(01:19:56)
amplified by having these tools.
(01:19:58)
Obviously, the government included.
(01:20:00)
>> Nice. Mustafa, thank you so much for
(01:20:03)
taking the time on a Friday night. Uh
(01:20:05)
grateful to have this conversation with
(01:20:07)
you. Uh Dave, Alex, appreciate it. want
(01:20:11)
to final question from you Dave.
(01:20:13)
>> Final question if I have one that I
(01:20:15)
have. All right. I prediction
(01:20:18)
uh quantum computing right now has
(01:20:21)
nothing to do with going what's going on
(01:20:23)
in LLMAI. It's all Matt moles on Nvidia
(01:20:26)
chips and soon to be TPUs and other
(01:20:29)
custom chips. Best guess six, seven
(01:20:32)
years from now, uh the AI is very good
(01:20:36)
at writing code and compiling and can
(01:20:38)
figure out quantum operations. Are
(01:20:41)
quantum chips relevant or they on the
(01:20:44)
sideline still or is everything ported
(01:20:46)
over to quantum and Microsoft can take
(01:20:48)
advantage of its lead?
(01:20:49)
>> Yeah, I mean I I I think it's going to
(01:20:51)
be a big part of the mix. I think it's
(01:20:53)
sort of an under relative to the amount
(01:20:55)
of time we spend talking about AI is
(01:20:58)
kind of an undercknowledged part of the
(01:21:00)
wave actually a little bit like
(01:21:01)
synthetic biology. I think that
(01:21:03)
especially in the in the sort of you
(01:21:05)
know general conversation uh I think
(01:21:07)
people aren't grasping those two uh
(01:21:10)
waves which are going to be just as as
(01:21:12)
as as impactful and and crash at the
(01:21:14)
same time that AI is coming into focus.
(01:21:18)
>> All right, you heard it here.
(01:21:19)
>> This is a closing question to appeal
(01:21:21)
maybe to your more accelerationist side.
(01:21:24)
What can the audience do to accelerate
(01:21:27)
AI for science, AI for engineering? What
(01:21:30)
are what do you view as the the limiting
(01:21:32)
factors? If I I often talk on the
(01:21:34)
podcast about this notion of an
(01:21:36)
innermost loop, the idea that in
(01:21:37)
computer science, if you want to
(01:21:39)
optimize a program, you tend to to find
(01:21:41)
loops within loops, and you want to
(01:21:43)
optimize the innermost loop in order to
(01:21:45)
optimize the the overall program. What
(01:21:46)
do you see as the innermost loop, the
(01:21:49)
limiting factor, if you will, that the
(01:21:51)
audience listening, if they're suitably
(01:21:53)
empowered, can help optimize to speedrun
(01:21:58)
maybe a Star Trek future over the next
(01:22:00)
10 years or a Star Trek economy? What do
(01:22:01)
we do?
(01:22:02)
>> Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's
(01:22:04)
pretty clear that most of these models
(01:22:06)
are going to speed up the time to
(01:22:08)
generate hypothesis. The slow part is
(01:22:10)
going to be validating hypothesis in the
(01:22:12)
real world. And so um the the all we can
(01:22:16)
do at this point is just ingest more and
(01:22:18)
more information into our own brains and
(01:22:21)
then co-use that with a single model
(01:22:25)
that progresses with you because it's
(01:22:27)
becoming like a second brain. Like for
(01:22:30)
example, Copilot is actually really good
(01:22:32)
at personalization now. Like most of its
(01:22:34)
answers and so the more you use it, the
(01:22:36)
more those answers pick up on themes
(01:22:39)
that you're interested in. And it's also
(01:22:41)
gently getting more proactive. So, it's
(01:22:43)
kind of nudging you about new papers or
(01:22:45)
new articles that come out um that are
(01:22:48)
obviously in tune with whatever you've
(01:22:50)
been talking about previously. So, you
(01:22:52)
know, it's a bit kind of a simplistic
(01:22:54)
copout answer, but just the more you use
(01:22:55)
it, the better it gets, the better it
(01:22:57)
learns you, the better you become
(01:22:59)
because it becomes this sort of aid to
(01:23:00)
your own line of inquiry.
(01:23:02)
>> So, that sounds like your your advice to
(01:23:04)
the audience is use copilot more and
(01:23:06)
that's the the single best accelerant
(01:23:08)
that you can do to speed this up
(01:23:09)
>> or any other AI. I mean, loads of great
(01:23:11)
>> I heard you also talk about can you
(01:23:13)
build the physical system that is going
(01:23:16)
to enable AI to run the experiments in a
(01:23:20)
24/7 closed dark cycle to be able to
(01:23:24)
mine nature for data, right? And there
(01:23:26)
are a number of companies that are are
(01:23:28)
doing this. Laya is one recently out of
(01:23:30)
Harvard MIT.
(01:23:31)
>> Um I find that exciting where AI is
(01:23:34)
becoming an explorer
(01:23:36)
um on our behalf gathering that data.
(01:23:39)
Um, yeah.
(01:23:41)
>> Yeah. Spot on.
(01:23:42)
>> Yeah.
(01:23:44)
>> Thank you again.
(01:23:45)
>> This has been great. Thanks a lot. It
(01:23:46)
was a really fun conversation.
(01:23:47)
>> Yeah, really fun. Thanks.
(01:23:49)
>> Appreciate it, my friend.
(01:23:50)
>> All right. Good to see you.
(01:23:51)
>> Every week, my team and I study the top
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