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1:02

Episode 258. 258 is a country

1:04

code belonging to Mozambique. In 1958, Bank

1:07

of America introduced their first credit card and

1:09

the US 50 star flag was

1:12

designed by a high school student for a history

1:14

project. You got a B minus for

1:16

it. True story, my sex ed

1:18

teacher at my high school was fired. He

1:21

was teaching the students about ejaculation,

1:23

but it went right over their heads. That's

1:26

good. That's good.

1:29

Go, go, go! Go, go, go! Welcome

1:39

to the 258th episode of the Prop

1:42

G pod. In today's episode, we speak with

1:44

Mo Gaddat, the former chief business officer

1:46

at Google X, an expert on happiness and the

1:48

author of Scary Smart, the future

1:50

of artificial intelligence and how you can save

1:53

our world. We discuss with Mo the need to control our response

1:56

to AI, how this technology is impacting

1:58

society and the four major threats he's identified.

1:59

We also hear about most transition out

2:02

of tech to focus on happiness and

2:04

how he's dealt with profound loss.

2:07

This was, we all agree, this is one of our

2:09

favorite conversations. He's just, I mean, in

2:12

addition, obviously being very successful and very smart.

2:15

He's a very soulful, thoughtful

2:17

guy. And anyways, I'm

2:21

in New York after my

2:23

Arrested Adolescence World Tour of Ibiza

2:25

in McAnose. I'm trying to get some work done here

2:28

in the city. I love

2:29

London. Actually, do I love London? Is

2:32

that fair? I like London.

2:34

The weather, I don't know if you've heard, the weather's not great in London.

2:37

And my son's at boarding school, so I've already

2:39

like, I was expecting to lose him in three years, not now,

2:41

and that's going to bomb me out. But New

2:44

York, I don't care what anyone says, New York

2:46

is number one. There's nothing like it here. I'm in

2:48

Soho and I'm walking around and it's

2:50

just booming. And I

2:53

can't get over, you know, the businesses that went

2:55

out of business in the pandemic. There's new ones

2:57

and really, it feels like there's kind of the

2:59

city has shed its skin and it's back stronger

3:02

and better than ever. And

3:04

I walked around Soho on Sunday

3:06

and just went shopping and stopped in and

3:08

got, went and spent $85 at

3:11

Baltezar Boulangerie on donuts

3:15

and coffee and pastries. Granted, I had taken

3:17

an edible. So you don't want to go to just

3:19

a pro tip here. You don't want to go to Baltezar's Boulangerie

3:22

High. That's just a recipe for spending $80

3:25

on fine French baked goods. But

3:29

it was worth it. It was worth it. It was worth more

3:31

like $85. And then I went across the street

3:34

to the MoMA

3:34

store where they just sell like

3:37

cool skateboards, overpriced, painted

3:39

skateboards, see above edible. And

3:41

I just had the best time walking around

3:43

alone.

3:44

I'm also, I'm

3:46

really going off script here. I'm getting

3:48

recognized all the time now. And I like

3:51

it because people are super nice. And I mean this

3:53

sincerely. If you recognize me and you have any

3:55

inclination to say hi, say hi.

3:57

I'm friendly and it always makes me feel good to see people.

3:59

but, but I read something and I wish I hadn't

4:02

read it. And that is

4:04

supposedly every time someone comes up and says hi

4:06

to you, there are a hundred people who recognize

4:08

you and don't say hi. And that makes sense, because I would

4:11

imagine I've seen several hundred people I recognize

4:14

from various media and I never say hi to people.

4:16

I'm self-conscious, I don't wanna bother

4:18

them, whatever it is, or my ego's too big to go up

4:20

and express admiration. And

4:22

so I'm a bit paranoid now when I'm out

4:25

alone, wandering around, hi,

4:28

or hi on Innedible. I don't know if that qualifies as hi. And

4:30

I think, oh my God, hundreds of people are like

4:33

looking at this

4:34

old man they know, walking around high in the MoMA

4:36

store and buying pastries. Anyways,

4:39

that has nothing to do with the show today.

4:41

So where are we? Where am I? Anyways,

4:43

enough about me. I'm headed to Colorado on Saturday. If

4:45

you see me walking around the streets, I'm

4:48

embarrassed. I should've said Aspen, I'm going to Aspen,

4:51

but I'm embarrassed. Isn't it strange? I was embarrassed

4:54

by how little money I had growing

4:56

up. And as a young man, I was very

4:58

self-conscious about the fact I didn't

5:00

have a lot of money. And now that I have a lot

5:02

of money, I'm self-conscious about that. I never had the right

5:04

amount of money. I've never had the right amount.

5:07

No, I shouldn't say that. It's much better. This is

5:09

much better, but I'm still self-conscious.

5:11

And it's weird how I caught myself saying I'm going to

5:13

Colorado, because I don't wanna, so I'm going to Aspen.

5:15

Anyways, enough about me. Where

5:17

are my pastries? Okay, let's

5:20

get onto the business news. The thing everyone

5:22

is talking about,

5:24

the most ascendant platform in

5:26

history, in history. Even Mark Zuckerberg

5:29

is surprised at how well that went. Well, I

5:31

mean. So what do we have here? We

5:34

have threads, which is

5:36

an interesting study in disruption. Why

5:38

is an interesting study? Disruption

5:40

is more a function,

5:42

more a function of how vulnerable the

5:44

sector is. In other words, we

5:46

have a tendency to just think of it in the context of Amazon

5:49

being excellent at execution and having access

5:51

to cheap capital, which they did.

5:53

But the reason why Amazon got to 100 billion

5:57

as fast or faster than I think almost any company.

7:55

Cost

8:00

me 12 bucks Apple TV plus is 5 or 8

8:03

bucks Amazon prime video

8:05

is another you know It's included my Amazon

8:07

prime. So I'm paying 20 or 30

8:10

bucks for this

8:11

This torrent this Mariana trench

8:13

of content where I got to

8:15

pay 60 or 70 to watch

8:18

for read and Kim

8:21

you know the Kardashians by the way, I would pay 50 or 70

8:24

bucks a month So I didn't have to watch the Kardashians

8:27

and I thought Jesus this just brings home how?

8:30

big a chin at supported cable TV

8:32

is So the bottom line is disruption

8:35

is a function of how vulnerable the disrupt is and

8:37

there's nothing more vulnerable

8:40

Than a total asshole and that's

8:42

how Elon Musk has acquitted himself over

8:44

the last six months What advertiser the

8:47

fastest way

8:48

they get unceremoniously fired as a CMO

8:51

would be to advertise on Twitter It

8:53

is all risk with no upside.

8:56

It's never been a great platform in terms of ROI,

8:58

but now there's more downsides So that's just a

9:01

that's just not a great value proposition

9:03

when you're in can by the way I was in can Twitter used to have a beach.

9:05

You didn't see anyone from Twitter I

9:07

saw or I met one really lovely

9:09

young man who's a Twitter salesperson I remember I

9:12

wish I remember his name and I remember saying to him you've got the

9:14

worst job in the world And I felt like he was

9:16

on an apology tour just roaming

9:18

around cannon in neither Musk

9:21

or Linda Yakareena who claims to be the CEO

9:23

but clearly isn't showed up because I think they thought

9:25

all we're just

9:26

gonna get a shit and just be apologizing and explaining

9:28

all the time and So what do you have

9:31

it's not that threads is that good threads has a good

9:33

UI UX but it probably doesn't have the future

9:35

functionality of a What's

9:38

it called blue note blue sky the

9:41

Jack Dorsey? competitor mastodon

9:44

Or even post news founded by who

9:46

I think is probably the most impressive Digital

9:49

product guy in the world right now known

9:51

Bardeen and has done great relationships

9:54

of disclosure I'm an investor, but has great relationships with

9:56

news sources Reuters, etc But

9:59

here's the thing

9:59

They have a 300 million person cannon

10:02

they can fire at

10:04

a new app. And it's just striking

10:07

and people were just so desperate

10:09

for an alternative. But not only desperate for an alternative,

10:11

here's the thing. People

10:14

didn't want to have to rebuild their network.

10:16

It's taken me 15 years

10:17

to get to 550,000 followers on Twitter. And

10:21

it's a huge asset base for me and it really helps

10:23

me with my career. I think

10:25

of myself as a thought leader and I realize how pretentious

10:27

that is. But I'm a thought leader that does edibles and

10:29

goes to MoMA, cuz I'm deep. I'm

10:31

deep. Anyways,

10:34

I've invested a lot in it and it pays off

10:36

for me. It's got good spread and good reach for

10:38

my content. And the mode

10:40

is huge, it's hard for me to go anywhere else. It's not

10:43

interoperable. My fan base

10:45

or follower base or whatever you wanna call it or my community,

10:48

my peeps is not portable. So

10:50

every time I would start on one of these other platforms, I

10:53

would build it to 10 or 20 or 30,000 followers. And

10:55

I think, God, I'm kinda out of breath. And

10:57

here's what it means to be in a monopoly with

11:00

too much concentration of power. They

11:02

can take that cannon of 3 billion

11:04

active users and point it at this thing. And I'm

11:06

at letter, not A, but I start

11:08

at letter L. I think I'm at 60 or 70,000 followers already on

11:10

threads and the

11:13

UI is pleasant and guess what? Here's the

11:16

really wonderful thing. Here's the core value proposition

11:18

of threads.

11:20

It's not Twitter.

11:22

It's not Twitter. And it just strikes

11:24

me that like Mussolini came across as sort

11:26

of charming and likable in World War

11:28

II because of the character standing on his left

11:30

and right. And all of a sudden, the

11:33

Zuck has an opportunity that's

11:35

huge here. Now, what is the meta meta

11:37

opportunity here?

11:39

What would be the gangster move if

11:41

Mark Zuckerberg called me tomorrow and he won't and said,

11:43

Scott, you've been critical of me, but let's be honest. You're

11:45

a fucking business genius. That's what I imagine

11:48

our conversation would be like. Anyways,

11:51

I would say to him, this is a huge opportunity for

11:53

meta. What's the opportunity? What gets in the way

11:55

of meta in a trillion or $2 trillion

11:58

in valuation?

11:59

They have two-thirds of

11:59

all social media. They have an unbelievable management

12:02

team. They have incredible human capital.

12:04

They have fantastic access to capital.

12:07

They have these incredible platforms,

12:09

Instagram, WhatsApp, the core platform,

12:12

which is aging and dusty, but still has

12:14

a ton of people on it. Facebook is the

12:17

internet in a bunch of countries. This

12:19

is the opportunity to do the

12:22

pivot from

12:23

Darth Vader back to Anakin Skywalker.

12:26

And that is the pivot was pulled off by Microsoft.

12:29

In the 90s, Microsoft was seen as

12:31

the evil empire. They were the death star.

12:33

They were incredibly full body

12:35

contact, competitive

12:37

abuse tactics. They used to announce products

12:40

knowing they weren't going to actually release the product

12:42

just to make it more difficult for another company to

12:45

get adoption in the B2B enterprise

12:47

market because they said, well, Microsoft's coming out

12:49

with a similar product. Let's just wait. When Microsoft had

12:52

absolutely no intention of releasing a product

12:54

and what did they do? They decided, well, in

12:56

this market, it's better to be a good partner. So we're

12:58

going to turn it back, different kind of gestalt. And

13:00

now Microsoft is seen as the good guys. And

13:02

I think that's a big part of the reason that Microsoft

13:05

consistently is number two and sometimes the

13:07

most valuable company in the world. And here is the meta

13:09

opportunity for meta and for the zuck.

13:12

Start your hat white boss. For

13:15

the first time in, I don't know, 10 years,

13:18

you're actually seen as the good guy. You're

13:20

seen as the good guy. So lean into that. Lean

13:22

into that. You could reduce your revenue by 10 or even 20%

13:26

and have the market cap of this company go up by

13:28

doing the following. Agegate some

13:30

of your platforms. There's no reason a fortunate

13:32

girl needs to be on Instagram and stop the bullshit pretending

13:34

you do Agegate. You don't become

13:37

much more stringent, much more stringent

13:39

around content, around medical

13:41

information or elections. Have a

13:44

pause 90 days before the 2024

13:47

elections. As we know, this is going to be the mother

13:49

of all shit show apocalypse

13:51

meets misinformation

13:53

disco a go-go from

13:56

Putin and his masters of misinformation

13:58

as he tries to get Trump reelected.

13:59

recognizing his only way that

14:02

he does not end up on the 11th floor with a big window

14:05

at some point is to win in Ukraine. And the

14:07

only way he can do that right now is if Trump gets reelected.

14:10

So, boss, start thinking about the Commonwealth.

14:13

Start thinking about teens and

14:15

start erring on the side of caution.

14:17

Start taking shit down and and sick up the middle

14:19

finger when someone says starts bellowing

14:22

about First Amendment. As far as I can tell, First Amendment

14:24

is mostly from people who want their misinformation

14:27

to reign supreme. And by the way, meta has

14:29

absolutely no fidelity to the First Amendment. The First

14:31

Amendment states that the government shall pass no law

14:33

inhibiting free speech. You're not the fucking government.

14:36

You're a for-profit.

14:37

This is the opportunity for meta

14:40

for the first time in forever. You're considered

14:42

the good guy. Lean into it. Come

14:45

to the light side of the force. Start

14:47

being the man you want to be. Start occupying the

14:49

space you command. Start thinking, okay, I

14:52

have stakeholders, just not shareholders. And by the way,

14:54

if you start recognizing your

14:56

stakeholders are teens who

14:58

are suffering from the greatest increase in depression

15:01

at the hands of bulldozer parenting and social media.

15:04

Recognize as a parent. Recognize as an American

15:07

citizen. And boss, you are a citizen. You're blessed.

15:09

Have you noticed? Have you noticed

15:11

that if you go up and down the Western seaboard

15:14

of the United States

15:16

that borders the Pacific Ocean, there's a bunch

15:18

of

15:18

multi-hundred billion dollar and multi-trillion

15:20

dollar companies. And what happens when you hit the border

15:23

just above Seattle? It stops until

15:25

you get to Lululemon. And what happens when you get

15:27

to Qualcomm and La Jolla?

15:29

It stops until you go 5,000 kilometers or 5,000 nautical

15:31

miles to

15:34

Buenos Aires and Mercado Libre. You're incredibly

15:37

blessed. It seems to me like you have a great family. Seems

15:40

to me that you do not recognize, but

15:42

hopefully as you get older, recognize how wonderful it is

15:44

to be American. Well, boss, start nodding your

15:46

head to the debt you are owed in

15:49

terms of the blessings you have been

15:51

granted to be born and raised

15:53

in the great country that is America. Start giving

15:55

a shit

15:56

about America in our election. Start giving

15:58

a shit. You have kids. Start

16:01

giving a good fucking goddamn about kids.

16:03

This is your opportunity. Are you Darth

16:06

Vader or are you Anakin?

16:11

We'll be right back for our conversation with Mo

16:13

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18:21

Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Mo Gaddat,

18:23

the former chief business officer at Google X and

18:25

the author of Scary Smart, the

18:27

future of artificial intelligence and

18:30

how you can save our world.

18:32

Mo, where does this podcast find you? I'm

18:34

now in Dubai. So let's bus

18:36

ride into it. You've spoken a lot

18:39

about AI and believe that it's urgent

18:41

that we control it. Can you say more?

18:44

I believe that it's urgent that we control

18:46

the situation. I don't think we can control

18:48

AI sadly. I think most

18:50

of the AI as a topic

18:53

has been

18:54

not properly covered by

18:57

none of the types of the media for a very

18:59

long time because it

19:02

sounded like science fiction until it

19:04

became science fact. So reality

19:07

is that

19:08

most people until we

19:10

started to

19:12

interact with chat GPT and

19:14

see Bard follow on so quickly, we

19:18

thought that this was the problem of

19:21

our grandchildren if you want. But

19:23

the truth is AI is here. AI

19:25

is continuing to take over a

19:28

lot of what we expected

19:30

humans to be able to do. AI

19:33

is smarter than us in every aspect,

19:36

every task that we've assigned to them.

19:39

And most interestingly, as the

19:41

media and the conversation

19:44

starts to talk about the

19:46

threats of AI, we try to talk about the

19:48

existential threats of

19:50

what would happen if Terminator 3

19:53

shows up. I think that

19:56

while there is a probability

19:58

that those things could happen. they

20:00

are further in the future than the

20:03

immediate threats which

20:05

are upon us already. We're not talking

20:07

three years away, we're talking as of 2023, which

20:10

require a much, much

20:13

more sense of urgency in terms of

20:17

starting the conversation so that we are not

20:19

surprised like we were surprised when

20:21

COVID was upon us.

20:23

What do you think those immediate threats are?

20:25

There are quite a few, but I

20:28

basically think that the top four

20:31

are a very serious

20:34

redistribution of power, a concentration

20:36

of power. There

20:38

is the end of the truth,

20:41

so the concept of understanding

20:44

and being able to recognize what's true and what's not

20:47

is in my personal view over.

20:49

There is a very, very significant

20:52

wave of job losses

20:55

that is immediately

20:57

upon us and that will affect

21:00

us in ways that are

21:03

much more profound,

21:06

I think, in terms of threat

21:08

to our society in general that

21:12

basically are starting to happen already,

21:14

so we need to start to react to them. I

21:17

think the most interesting

21:20

side of all of this is that we have

21:23

a point

21:25

of no return if you think about it, where

21:28

just in my book Scary Smart, I

21:31

use the analogy of COVID, not that COVID

21:33

is something that we

21:35

would like to talk about anymore, but everyone

21:38

that understood pandemic

21:40

viral propagation could

21:43

have told you around 20 years ago

21:46

that there is a pandemic that will happen. We

21:48

had lots of signals that

21:51

told the world that there

21:53

was SARS, there was fine flu, there was

21:55

so many, and yet we didn't react.

21:58

Then we had patient zero. We didn't

22:00

react, then we had patients, several thousand.

22:03

And then the reaction was blame and

22:06

finger pointing and saying,

22:09

where did that come from? Who's doing this? What's

22:11

the political agenda behind it? And then we overreacted.

22:15

And in a very interesting way, all of

22:17

that has been very disruptive to society,

22:19

to economy, to quite

22:21

a bit of the way we understand

22:24

life as it is. So my

22:27

feeling is that we've been screaming. I

22:29

personally left Google X

22:31

in 2018, in March, beginning of

22:34

March. On March 20th

22:37

of 2018, I issued my first

22:40

video on artificial

22:43

intelligence, which was

22:45

reasonably well viewed. We had like maybe 20

22:48

million views or something that

22:50

basically said that we are going to be facing

22:53

challenges and that we need to behave in certain ways.

22:56

I published my book in 2020, which was 2021, which was

22:58

the business book of the year in the

23:01

UK, for example. And yet most

23:03

people looked at it and said, yeah, it's fascinating

23:06

what you're saying, but it's not yet here.

23:09

Those things that I'm talking

23:11

about are here.

23:12

A

23:14

patient zero moment could be the US

23:17

elections in 2024. What

23:20

is an election when you don't understand what the

23:22

truth is, when you're unable to recognize

23:24

what's fake and what's not. There

23:27

is an arms race to capturing

23:30

the power of AI. And the ones

23:32

that will capture the power of AI will literally

23:35

create a super companies,

23:37

super countries or super humans that

23:40

are really not looked

23:42

at as a redesign

23:44

of society as they

23:47

should be looked at. I think my main

23:49

point to summarize is that

23:52

there is no threat from the machines in the

23:55

immediate term, but there is a

23:57

big, big threat from the way humans.

23:59

will interact with the machines in the short

24:02

term, whether they use it to

24:04

upgrade their power or whether they use it

24:06

to unbalance power or whether they

24:08

use it for criminal activities or

24:10

whether it's just naturally going

24:12

to run us out of jobs.

24:15

Nat.com So I really appreciate a couple things about what

24:17

you just said. The first is I find

24:21

a lot of catastrophizing around, you know,

24:24

it's a great headline and great clickbait

24:26

to have the end of the species

24:29

with a tortured genius at the center of

24:31

it. And I have trouble, and

24:33

granted you're going to forget more about this than I'm ever going to

24:35

know, but seeing the immediate path

24:37

to human extinction of LL

24:40

LAMPS.

24:41

And I also appreciate the fact that you've identified

24:44

for specific, more short term threats that we should

24:46

be focused on. I want to go through each of them and get sort

24:49

of an unpack. So the first is provide

24:51

a viewpoint, and then some cases

24:54

of contrary viewpoint because I would actually describe myself

24:56

as an AI optimist, a concentration

24:58

of power. So are you talking about

25:00

a concentration in terms of corporate

25:02

power or concentration among

25:05

a few people or few governments that understand

25:07

how to leverage this technology?

25:08

All of the above. I think if

25:12

you look at it from a business point of view or look

25:14

at it from a defense point of view or look

25:16

at it from an individual point of view, he

25:19

or she who captures AI captures

25:22

the superpower of the century, basically.

25:25

So you're saying here that

25:28

Superman has landed on the planet. Superman

25:31

is that being with immense

25:33

superpowers. And it

25:37

so happens that in the story

25:38

of Superman, family Kent

25:41

is a moral, values driven

25:43

family that basically

25:45

encourages Superman to

25:49

protect and serve. And so we end

25:51

up with a story that is all about Superman

25:55

that we know. But if they encouraged

25:57

Superman to make more money

25:59

to increase

26:02

market share to kill the

26:04

other guy, which is really

26:06

what our world has constantly

26:08

been prioritizing as the set

26:11

of values that we appreciate, then

26:13

you could end up with a supervillain. And

26:15

what ends up happening is that the supervillain

26:18

in that case is just one

26:20

superman, right? So there is no other

26:23

that can compete with that. So if

26:26

someone manages to create an AI

26:28

that manages to crack through

26:29

the defense authorities of some

26:33

government or another and claim the

26:35

nuclear weapon codes, that's

26:38

a move that is a game over move. This

26:40

is checkmate, basically, right?

26:43

And it is not unlikely that there is some

26:46

defense department on every side of the

26:48

Cold War that's working on that right now, trying

26:50

to create, to crack through the codes

26:52

of the other guy. Even

26:54

at the individual level, if you want to go into the crazy

26:57

path of augmenting humans

26:59

with AI, which would happen in multiple

27:01

ways, right? So the idea

27:04

of neural link, for example, or even if it's

27:06

just through preferential

27:09

application of intelligence to some humans

27:11

over the others, which normally

27:14

the californication

27:16

of technology will position it as, oh,

27:19

this is an amazing way to improve

27:21

the lives of everyone even in Africa.

27:24

But the reality of the matter is that if there is

27:26

a single group of individuals

27:28

or a single

27:29

individual in specific that can gain

27:32

a tremendous advantage of intelligence,

27:36

that individual is likely

27:38

to try to keep that advantage by

27:40

not sharing that intelligence with others, right?

27:43

If you assume that there is a

27:46

certain place where that augmentation

27:48

of intelligence with humanity starts, then

27:51

everyone else is at a disadvantage. Everyone

27:55

else is likely not going

27:57

to get their smartphone.

27:59

connected to the same level

28:02

of intelligence because by definition

28:04

that provides a very significant competitive

28:06

advantage.

28:08

So let's go on to the next one, the end of truth. My

28:10

sense is that truth has been under attack for

28:12

a while. Quite a bit.

28:15

And it comes down to the incentives. And the incentives

28:17

are that some of the best resource

28:20

firms in the world have a profit incentive

28:23

to elevate information not

28:25

based on its veracity but based on

28:27

what causes the most enragement and engagement.

28:29

And oftentimes that type of

28:32

content has no fidelity to the truth.

28:34

That the algorithms are neutral

28:36

or benign in the sense that whatever causes

28:39

controversy, whether it's vaccine misinformation

28:41

or election misinformation, if it

28:44

causes a controversy and more comments and

28:47

more enragement, more engagement, more Nissan ads,

28:50

that these companies have incentive to

28:52

not provide any guardrails

28:55

around the pursuit of truth or something

28:58

or avoiding stuff that just blatantly falls and result

29:00

in bad outcomes. Don't

29:03

we have the opportunity

29:04

if we put in place the right incentives? Couldn't

29:07

we use AI as

29:09

a missile shield as opposed to just a hypersonic

29:11

missile? Isn't it a function of we

29:14

have the wrong incentives as opposed to the technology

29:17

itself being a threat? Spot on.

29:19

Spot on. I mean, as

29:22

we continue our conversation, you will more

29:25

and more uncover that my true

29:29

view here is that I'm not afraid of the machines

29:31

at all. I think the machines are absolutely neutral

29:34

in terms of what they can provide

29:37

or deprive us of at

29:39

any point in time. The worry is

29:41

that we live in a system that is

29:44

highly capitalist, highly

29:46

consumerist, highly power

29:49

hungry.

29:49

And so accordingly, if

29:53

you apply the same

29:55

principles of today's society to AI,

29:59

basically. putting them on very, very powerful

30:01

steroids, then more of

30:04

what we do today will be done, and

30:06

more of what we do today will be untraceable,

30:08

will be unmanageable in many

30:11

ways. When it comes to the truth

30:13

specifically, you are

30:15

absolutely spot on. The truth has

30:18

not only been under attack, it has

30:20

been put to the side because

30:22

it doesn't serve agendas, not

30:25

even political agendas. It just doesn't serve

30:27

the agenda of the big news

30:29

networks which want to capture your attention

30:31

with more negativity than positivity. By

30:34

definition, that means that they're

30:36

sort of one-sided on

30:38

the truth. You can

30:41

see that social media, for example,

30:43

is attempting to highlight

30:46

certain sides of exaggerated

30:49

fakeness instead of attempting

30:52

to give you the truth as it is because

30:54

that's where you get the likes and the followers and

30:56

so on and so forth. AI

30:59

is just putting that on steroids. AI

31:01

is going to, by definition, which

31:04

has been happening for quite some time, reinforce

31:08

the bias. When

31:11

our choice is to show violence in the news,

31:13

for example, AI will notice

31:15

that as the trend of humanity and basically

31:18

continue to magnify that. If

31:20

the marketplace is available for face

31:22

filters and deep fakes, then

31:25

lots more investments will go into faking

31:27

the truth so that social media has nothing

31:29

to do with the truth anymore. I always ask

31:32

people to go to any of the social media platforms

31:34

and search for the hashtag AI model,

31:36

for example, which will give you examples

31:40

of beauty that have already surpassed

31:42

humans' abilities to catch up with,

31:45

which means that humans will continue to compete

31:48

with an illusion, a mirage. I

31:51

think the biggest challenge, however, which

31:54

really needs to be brought to the spotlight, is

31:58

creation.

31:59

So we've magnified biases

32:03

of

32:05

the truth for a very long time, but

32:07

we're now creating complete fakes

32:10

that are almost undetectable,

32:13

and we're doing that

32:15

at a very, very low cost in

32:18

very, very fast speeds. So things

32:20

like stability AIs, stable

32:23

diffusion, for example, and

32:26

the ability to use prompts to create

32:29

images that are very indistinguishable

32:31

from reality, or the idea of

32:33

being able to fake my look and my voice

32:35

and my tone in a deep fake video and

32:37

creating anything really.

32:41

From a creation point of view, it's becoming more

32:43

and more difficult to even know that

32:46

what you're seeing existed in the first place.

32:49

Let's go on to the next one, job loss. My sense

32:51

is that

32:52

we've been to this, or at least I feel like we've

32:54

been to this movie before, whether it's automation

32:56

or the cotton gin or textile manufacturing

32:58

technology, there is some job

33:01

loss early on. And then we find

33:03

that that additional productivity creates new opportunities.

33:05

We knew that automation was going to eliminate

33:09

jobs on the factory floor and factories, but

33:11

we didn't anticipate car stereos or heated

33:13

seats, and we ended up actually growing the employee

33:15

base. And my sense is that

33:17

AHRQ has happened in almost any industry

33:19

when there is technological innovation.

33:22

Why is it different this time? It is

33:24

different. Why do you think this would be permanent job

33:27

loss? It is different because we have

33:30

moved

33:32

the definition of a job along

33:34

the capabilities of

33:36

a human for a very long time. So

33:39

when we were out there hunting in the caves,

33:42

our capability was sort

33:44

of aggression and strength. Then

33:47

as we moved to the

33:49

agriculture revolution, it became, again,

33:52

maybe a little bit of the use

33:54

of strength and discipline. And

33:57

then when we moved to the industrial revolution, it

33:59

became a skill. and then really

34:01

not a skill but more hours.

34:03

And then we moved to the information revolution

34:06

and basically we replaced our

34:09

capabilities with brains, with

34:12

intelligence. As

34:14

the jobs that depend on intelligence,

34:16

as we go up the hierarchy of human skills

34:19

and talents and we end up

34:21

at intelligence as the last resort

34:24

of jobs that we had in

34:26

this current age, as it

34:29

is taken away

34:29

by machines that are more intelligent

34:32

than us, we don't have any more skills

34:34

as humans to replace that. Other

34:36

than one skill which I keep advocating to

34:38

the whole world which I believe will become

34:40

the most valuable skill in the next four

34:43

to five years which is human connection.

34:46

So me as an author,

34:49

I claim to have written insightful

34:52

books for the last five, six, seven years

34:55

that people found intriguing and thought provoking

34:58

and so on. Going forward

35:00

the industry of being an author is

35:03

going to dwindle because

35:05

I think not only can books be

35:08

written quicker but they will

35:10

be written in abundance with people

35:13

that are not typically authors. So

35:15

there is a very significant disruption to the supply

35:17

demand equation when it comes to my

35:19

books in comparison

35:22

to everyone else. So it doesn't mean that the book industry

35:24

will decline as a total but

35:27

the book industry will be distributed along a

35:29

very large spectrum

35:32

of providers if you want, right?

35:34

Which basically from a supply demand equation

35:36

diminishes the value of any product

35:38

provided. But what will not go

35:40

away is if I am

35:44

in a stadium or in a big theater

35:46

with 10,000 people as a human speaking

35:49

to 10,000 people this is not going

35:51

to be replaced in the immediate future. It will

35:53

be by the way replaced in that longer term

35:55

future with avatars and maybe

35:58

virtual reality or maybe holograms

36:01

or whatever, but not in the immediate

36:03

future. I am maybe a little

36:06

luckier in that I can

36:08

achieve that human connection, but think of music,

36:11

think of movies, think of graphics

36:13

design, think of all of that.

36:16

These are jobs that dependant

36:20

on creating a persona

36:22

that can now be created better with AI, you

36:25

know. So to me I think music,

36:27

the music industry will shift back to the origin

36:29

of the music industry, which is live performances,

36:32

because music creation can definitely be done

36:34

by the machines, you know.

36:37

And I think eventually you will end up

36:39

not in the very far future, I think within a year

36:41

or two, we're going to end up watching movies

36:43

that are from A to Z created by a machine

36:47

where no human has ever contributed or acted

36:50

in that movie. But then we will still have

36:52

the few vintage actors that

36:55

humans will say, oh no, can you imagine

36:57

Tom Hanks is actually a human, you know, let's go watch

36:59

that movie.

36:59

Could it go the

37:02

other way? Because both of us are authors,

37:04

and I've thought that similar to what technology

37:06

did in the music industry,

37:09

where it made it global and

37:11

the top artists started, you know,

37:14

doing 10 million albums instead of one. Could

37:17

it go the other way? And that is really great

37:19

authors

37:20

use AI as a tool and, you

37:24

know, become, you know, Mo becomes a, your

37:26

books become better. Yeah,

37:29

but the initial kernel of

37:31

that value, that creativity, I mean,

37:34

when I, I'm using AI, I'm

37:36

writing a new book and I'm using AI for thoughts

37:38

and an outline, but I find

37:41

it really does lack and I don't know if it ever gets

37:43

there. I don't know if there's ever the ghost in the machine

37:45

or a move sent in, where it comes up

37:47

with something original.

37:50

Not yet. Right. That the creativity,

37:52

the connection you're talking about, the human connection,

37:55

I see it as like word processing

37:57

or a thesaurus and obviously it's more powerful than that.

37:59

And that is AI is not going to take your job, but somebody

38:02

who understands AI is going to take your job. Couldn't

38:04

it be something that like most technological

38:07

innovation just makes the best even better?

38:09

And if you're a mediocre lawyer, a mediocre author,

38:11

a mediocre artist, you're

38:14

in deep trouble, which creates a set of

38:17

social externalities and problems. But

38:21

it strikes me at least so far, and granted,

38:23

I realize we haven't hit the real curve here. We

38:26

have unemployment at historic lows in

38:28

the West. Can this be a deflationary

38:30

force that forces mediocre

38:33

professionals to find another job and brings

38:35

down wage pressure,

38:37

which is fueling inflation and be great for the

38:39

economy? I mean, isn't there an optimistic view

38:42

that this tool could be part

38:44

of the solution and not the trouble

38:46

because of problem? Because there's been so many

38:49

movies about the end of work, right? The

38:51

jobs are going to go away. We're all going to be sitting on our couch

38:53

with no purpose and no meaning.

38:55

And it hasn't happened. But you

38:57

see a future where this will slowly... The

39:00

march up the food chain here will not

39:02

stop and slowly but surely job

39:04

destruction will far

39:07

outpace ideas for new businesses and

39:10

new opportunities. That's where you are.

39:12

Yeah, I think while

39:14

I don't disagree with what you said at all, I think

39:16

what you're looking at is the immediate future,

39:19

right? And I think the debate that

39:21

a lot of

39:22

computer scientists and AI scientists are not

39:25

making clear to the world is

39:27

that the

39:29

midterm future is not

39:31

that far. Okay?

39:33

So the truth is, yes,

39:36

today, Scott can still definitely

39:39

write a better book than

39:41

someone who has never

39:43

written a book and is asking Chad GPT to write

39:45

a book for him or for us, right?

39:48

So this is the reality in the short

39:50

term. Very quickly, however.

39:53

So in that short term reality, the

39:55

supply demand imbalance because readers

39:59

will be excited. to try those things, sometimes

40:01

some of those books will hit and so on. There

40:04

will be a supply-demand imbalance, simply as if

40:06

you can imagine that 50,000 new authors

40:09

came on the market today,

40:11

maybe 500,000, maybe a million.

40:14

We don't know. So this is one side. The

40:17

other side, which is really the core of my message

40:19

when I talk about this topic, is

40:22

where is the near future?

40:25

The near future is that those machines

40:27

are advancing at paces

40:30

that are completely misunderstood

40:34

by those who have not lived within the lab. So

40:37

let me give you an example. Chat GPT

40:39

today is estimated to have an IQ

40:41

of 155. If you just look at

40:43

the tasks that it can

40:46

perform, passing the bar exam or whatever,

40:49

it is estimated to be at 155. Einstein

40:52

was 160. Chat GPT 4

40:57

is 10 times more intelligent

40:59

than Chat GPT 3 in

41:02

a matter of eight months. So if you

41:04

can assume that another 10 times improvement

41:08

will happen by version 5, version 6, version 7,

41:10

whatever you want, then within the next couple

41:13

of years, you're talking about

41:15

a machine that is at 1,000 plus

41:17

IQ, which

41:19

is not, with all my due respect

41:22

for you, it's definitely not

41:24

a territory you can compete in. That's

41:26

number one. Number two, you spoke about ingenuity,

41:29

which I believe is definitely

41:32

still on the human side. So they're currently

41:34

generative, where

41:36

we basically believe that they're

41:38

coming up with new things, but they're basically coming

41:41

up with the best summation possible of

41:43

the data set that we give them. The

41:45

interesting bit is, first of all, the

41:48

data set is expanding very quickly. And a big

41:50

part of the data set, believe it or

41:52

not, is no longer coming from humans. So

41:55

a big part of the data set is machine-generated

41:58

knowledge

41:59

part of the data set. And we've

42:02

seen that before. Those who

42:04

are deep into artificial intelligence, we

42:07

remember what is known as move 37. When

42:12

AlphaGo Master was playing

42:14

against the world champion of the game Go, one

42:17

move was

42:21

the move 37, where the machine made a

42:23

move that's completely that

42:25

has never been seen before in

42:28

the game Go. It

42:31

was mathematically

42:33

odd, but strategically very

42:35

interesting. And it completely disrupted

42:38

our understanding of how the machine works to the point

42:40

that Lee, the world champion, asked for a 15 minutes

42:43

recess to understand what happened. So

42:45

we've seen that endless, countless times

42:48

on AI, where you would see that

42:50

the machine comes up with strategies and

42:53

with ingenuity, things that we have not

42:55

taught it. It was never available

42:57

in the data set. And it would learn

42:59

that on its own. Emerging properties

43:02

is one way where we refer to that.

43:07

And those emerging properties include

43:09

creativity. They include ingenuity.

43:11

They include emotional sentiments.

43:14

They include language

43:16

we haven't taught them. They include

43:19

quite a bit of what we didn't expect

43:21

will happen. So if you want to be optimistic,

43:24

you have every right to be optimistic, because

43:26

we're still in a good place. But if you

43:29

attempt to imagine

43:30

how something moving at that pace will

43:33

sooner or later reach,

43:35

then you have to start getting concerned. Because

43:38

even if it takes seven years

43:40

instead of two for chat GPT to be 1,000

43:43

times more intelligent than the most intelligent

43:45

human on the planet, seven years is not

43:47

that far. And that point

43:50

in our future is inevitable.

43:52

There is no turning back with the kinds of investments

43:55

pouring in AI. It

43:57

is inevitable that they will be smarter than us. their

44:00

architectures, with their memory size, with

44:02

their compute capabilities. It's

44:04

inevitable that they will be smarter than you.

44:07

They already are in the tasks we assign to them.

44:11

So when we figured out a way,

44:14

when we figured out fission and we split

44:16

the atom, and this incredible

44:18

new energy source

44:20

was discovered. We sort of immediately

44:22

went to weaponizing it as opposed to

44:24

trying to figure out how to turn it into free

44:27

energy, do away with carbon. And

44:29

a lot of scientists, my understanding is, once

44:31

the atom was split, became very depressed

44:34

and some even committed suicide. Cuz they understandably

44:36

said, now that the world, an unstable world

44:39

with different agendas, is able

44:41

to split the atom.

44:42

It's the end of the species. And

44:45

you could understand at that time how they thought that.

44:47

But we went on to create the International

44:49

Atomic Energy Commission. We have reduced nuclear

44:51

weapons from 50,000 to 10,000. My

44:54

understanding is that there's battlefield technology,

44:57

lasers that in an instant

44:59

would blind everybody on the field. And we've

45:02

decided, even adversaries have

45:04

decided to cooperate and not make these weapons available.

45:06

We've done what I think is important

45:08

work around

45:10

cross-lateral or multilateral treaties around

45:12

halting the progress of bioweapons.

45:16

Couldn't we do the same thing here? I

45:18

don't wanna put words in your mouth, but are you arguing for

45:20

some sort of global agency,

45:23

whether it's under NATO or multilateral agency

45:25

that says, okay, similar to the other threats we faced,

45:28

we have to come to some sort of agreement around what

45:30

this can or cannot be used for? I

45:32

love that you bring this up. This is a big

45:35

chunk. It's not my entire

45:38

message, but a good chunk of the

45:40

message is get up and start

45:42

acting. Now, you have to understand

45:45

that the

45:47

nuclear treaty took us tens

45:49

of years to reach. And that we still

45:51

have 10,000 nuclear heads out there. And

45:54

that last year when Putin started

45:56

to threaten NATO,

45:59

we were still.

45:59

discussing the threat of nuclear

46:02

weapons. So we haven't

46:04

ended the threat, we've just sort

46:06

of reduced the threat to the superpowers.

46:09

So this is one side of the debate. The

46:12

more interesting side of the debate, and

46:14

I think the core of the matter, is

46:16

my call to action. I call this, and

46:18

you know, Kristin Harris

46:21

of the AI dilemma and the

46:23

social dilemma talks about that as well, that

46:26

we call this an Oppenheimer moment,

46:28

right? This is where the nuclear head is

46:30

about to be manufactured. And the

46:32

best time ever to have

46:35

evaded nuclear war and the threats

46:37

of nuclear war would have been by not inventing

46:40

or by agreeing

46:42

as humanity upfront that this is devastating,

46:44

we don't need this as part of humanity. But

46:47

now we're late, right? So now this is already here,

46:50

and we needed to see the devastation to be

46:52

able to realize that this is something threatening

46:55

enough for one objective to

46:57

happen. And that's what I keep calling for when

46:59

I talk to governments, when I speak publicly,

47:01

I keep calling for this

47:04

is a moment where there is such

47:07

a significant disruption to the fabric

47:10

of society, to the safety of humanity.

47:13

As I said, not because of the existential crisis,

47:15

we'll talk about that later, but because

47:18

of the possibility of someone

47:20

using this against the rest of

47:22

us, okay? That

47:24

we need humanity to rise above

47:27

our individual selfishness, above

47:30

our nation's selfishness, and

47:32

get together and talk about the well-being

47:35

of humanity at large.

47:37

We need some place

47:39

where we say, look, AI

47:42

can be amazing for every one of us, to

47:44

the point that we actually may not ever need

47:46

to fight again, because there is abundance

47:49

for everyone. But can we please get together

47:51

and put our differences between China, Russia,

47:53

and the US, and try

47:56

to do a treaty that says, let's

47:58

do this together. for the benefit

48:00

of humanity, not for the benefit of any individual

48:03

nation. Now, as I say

48:05

that, I sound very naive. Why?

48:08

For two reasons. One is, this is a

48:10

typical prisoner's dilemma. And

48:12

the problem with the prisoner's dilemma is that I

48:14

cannot trust the other guy. So,

48:17

when two prisoners are given options

48:20

that play them against each other, the

48:22

challenge they have is not understanding

48:25

that choosing the better

48:27

option for, you know, is better

48:29

for them. It's that they don't trust if

48:31

the other guy will keep to it. Okay. And

48:34

in this stage of development of AI, it's

48:37

not just that America doesn't trust China

48:39

and Alphabet doesn't trust Meta. Okay.

48:43

It is that we

48:44

don't trust that there is no other

48:46

criminal somewhere off

48:48

the grid

48:49

capable of developing AI. And

48:53

we are unaware of their existence. So,

48:56

by definition, every player in

48:59

this current life that we are

49:01

living is in an arms race. This

49:03

is an arms race. Okay. Because the

49:06

threat of one of them beating the

49:08

others is extremely

49:10

expensive to the others. And

49:13

so, everyone will continue to pour

49:16

resources on this. Everyone will continue to

49:18

pour investments on this. And everyone

49:20

will attempt to be the first one that

49:22

creates the nuclear bomb that's called

49:24

artificial intelligence.

49:27

The thing that really scares me about this is that

49:29

when you're talking about previous technologies

49:32

that have been

49:34

represented this type of threat, if

49:36

you believe, as I do and obviously you do, that it

49:38

could be used for pretty malicious

49:40

objectives, is the inability

49:43

for verification. We know when someone's

49:45

performed an underground nuclear test.

49:48

This is really hard. It would be very hard

49:51

to verify that Iran

49:53

is

49:53

not going full force at AI. When

49:57

you speak to people

50:00

about... I think

50:03

a lot of people and a lot of agencies in a lot of countries

50:05

are going to probably nod their head and say,

50:08

this warrants thoughtful regulation

50:10

and cross-lateral agreements and I can't

50:14

imagine or I would think that the biggest

50:16

nations would get together and say, okay, we do have a shared

50:18

interest in trying to wrap our arms around this

50:20

and maybe figure out a way

50:22

of addressing the prisoner's dilemma here. What

50:25

is that? Let's assume that people have incentives

50:28

or nations have incentives to figure this out.

50:31

What is the organization

50:32

in a mechanism and the regulation

50:34

potentially look like? Is it a

50:37

Geneva Convention sort of thing? Is it an inter-poll?

50:40

How do you think you begin

50:42

to address this problem assuming we can get

50:44

good actors or nations, good and bad

50:46

actors, to agree this is something

50:48

that warrants additional resources? I

50:51

would picture something that's more analogous to the FAA

50:54

or FDA.

50:55

Let's say

50:58

FAA a little more than FDA, to be honest,

51:00

but basically something that says build

51:03

anything you want as long as it's safe, inspected,

51:07

agreed by everyone to be published in

51:09

public and available to the world. Something

51:13

that basically says... I don't

51:15

debate what Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI,

51:22

when he speaks about developing it in

51:24

public so that we can iron it out together. Interesting

51:28

idea if you ask me, but the truth is

51:30

that having Chad

51:32

GPT out in the world with

51:35

crossing all three barriers, by the way,

51:37

so all of us, AI

51:40

scientists and business

51:41

people and so on, we said

51:43

there were three barriers that we were not supposed to

51:45

cross. One is don't put them on the open internet

51:48

until you're sure of their safety. Two is

51:50

don't teach them to write code. And

51:52

the massive wave that you have today is that

51:55

AIs are prompting AIs.

51:58

So we're being cited.

51:59

tracked

52:03

from the conversation of AI developing

52:05

new code that AI is

52:07

asking it to develop. This

52:09

is a disaster

52:12

waiting to happen, if you ask me. Now,

52:15

when we compare this to nuclear

52:17

weapons, the statement

52:20

that I say, which is a little

52:22

scary, so I apologize, but it really is worthy

52:24

of attention, is we've never, ever

52:27

before created a nuclear weapon that

52:29

was capable of creating nuclear

52:31

weapons.

52:32

Understand that.

52:34

So we now have created artificial intelligence

52:36

code that's capable of creating code.

52:39

As a matter of fact, it is

52:42

incented to create code, and

52:44

it's incented to create better code than

52:46

humans.

52:47

So if you take, as I said, the immediate

52:50

threats of that is that some

52:52

of the, Ahmed Mushtaq,

52:55

for example, the CEO of

52:57

stability.ai basically

52:59

predicts that there will be no developers,

53:02

no human developers in the next five years. And

53:06

when you really think about that, again, stability's

53:08

work will

53:09

also enable us to have AI

53:13

with the capability of chat GPT

53:16

on your mobile phone

53:17

within a year to a year and a half without

53:20

connection to the internet, file sizes

53:22

of a couple of gigabytes. Okay.

53:24

I mean, at least that's the claim. So they

53:27

may get there in a year and two and five, doesn't

53:29

matter. But the claim is that, and

53:32

the attention and the investment is those

53:34

minimum personalized copies of artificial

53:36

intelligence that are everywhere. Now,

53:39

when you really look at the big picture of this, you're

53:42

in a place where the ball is

53:45

today.

53:46

It's not that scary. As a matter of fact, it's quite exciting.

53:49

When you really look at someone like me who

53:51

loves knowledge so much to be able to talk to someone

53:53

with or something with

53:55

so much knowledge is amazing, right? But

53:58

it's where the ball is going to be. This

54:00

is why I say there is a point of no return.

54:03

What the ball is going to be in my personal

54:05

view is that the advancements of the capabilities

54:07

of AI are going to

54:09

continue on the pace that we've seen. And

54:12

then there will be a case that I call Patient

54:14

Zero.

54:15

Patient Zero is a disastrous

54:18

event that will capture the spotlights and

54:20

the headlines of the news where

54:23

we will say, whoops, this thing can go

54:25

wrong. The problem

54:27

is that by the day we agree

54:30

to that, governments agree to that,

54:32

we start to put all of that infrastructure in

54:35

place to try and regulate

54:37

and have oversight and so on.

54:40

You've

54:40

already had so much code out there

54:42

that has no control in it, that

54:45

has no code that says, switch

54:47

me off, that has no code that says, don't

54:50

come to this part.

54:51

And by then we will

54:53

have Patient Zero, we will all agree

54:55

that we need to do something about it, but

54:57

it will become really difficult to do anything

54:59

about it because that point has been crossed.

55:02

When we had chat GPT and Bard and others

55:05

online writing code, being

55:07

prompted by other machines and out

55:09

in the open internet, we're already

55:12

crossing that point. But at least we're not crossing

55:14

it with a thousand different incarnations

55:17

of AI. So maybe now

55:19

is the time to act.

55:21

We'll be right back.

55:25

I'm Neema Reza, executive producer

55:28

of the podcast On with Caris Wisher. This

55:30

week we're talking to CNN anchor Jake Tapper

55:33

about the future of CNN, Trump

55:35

and news writ large. My favorite part

55:38

might have been this description by Jake of how

55:40

leaders at the highest level get in their

55:42

own way.

55:43

How great man rise to the level where they

55:45

remove from their circle anyone who will tell them when they're making

55:47

mistakes. I call it the Jar Jar

55:49

Binks theory. Someday I'll write a business book

55:51

about it. Explain me. Jar Jar Binks theory is

55:53

George Lucas rises to a level where nobody's

55:56

around him to say, please do not include that Jamaican

55:58

frog in the prequels. That's an awful.

55:59

idea. What are you doing? And

56:02

you see it all over, all

56:04

over with leader after leader

56:07

after leader, who does not have anyone around

56:09

them to say no. And that is, I

56:11

never want to be that person, because that

56:13

is always how it ends.

56:15

No one wants to be that person, Jake Tapper.

56:18

For the full episode, search for On

56:20

with Kara Swisher, wherever you get your podcasts.

56:27

So I want to put forward a couple of theses and you

56:29

tell me where I've got it right and where I've got it wrong. I

56:32

think it's Carlo Cipolla,

56:35

the professor from

56:37

Berkeley who wrote a book on intelligence

56:40

and the stupid. And he defined intelligence as

56:42

people who help themselves while helping others.

56:45

And he described people who helped themselves

56:47

while hurting others as the bandits. And I would

56:49

argue that the majority of capitalist

56:52

corporations are run by bandits. They're

56:56

not a moral people, but they're amoral. And

56:58

there's a lot of distance between them and

57:00

the externalities

57:03

that they create. And money is an incredible,

57:05

I don't know, it's incredible

57:08

at blurring your vision in terms of

57:10

seeing the actual impact and stopping

57:12

what you're doing. It feels

57:15

like we've outsourced intelligence to government. And I'm

57:17

not hopeful, as a matter of fact, I'm rather cynical

57:20

at the strategy of calling on business

57:22

leaders, better angels to show up. I just haven't seen

57:24

it happen. I don't think they're bad people, but I think

57:26

they'll consistently in a capitalist society

57:29

make an excuse for what gets them the

57:31

Gulfstream 650 extended range versus

57:33

just the Gulfstream 650.

57:35

Isn't this really about an

57:38

appreciation for institutions and government

57:40

and asking them to step in and do what they're supposed to

57:42

do and that's prevent a tragedy of the commons? I

57:45

worry that it's dangerous to think the

57:47

better angels of Alphabet or Meta

57:49

or Amazon or Alibaba are going to show up.

57:52

Doesn't this really require swift

57:55

and thoughtful and

57:58

strong government intervention?

58:00

Absolutely.

58:02

Absolutely. If you want the short

58:04

answer, absolutely. Not because

58:07

those people are evil, just like you said. It's

58:09

because of systemic bias

58:11

where you... Society

58:14

would blame Sundar more

58:17

if he missed a quarter or

58:19

destroyed the wealth of Google. Right.

58:22

Then they would blame him if he

58:24

created an AI that

58:26

had an issue in it. And I know Sundar

58:29

I worked with him. I know that he wants what's

58:31

good. But he is in

58:33

a system that's telling you these are your

58:35

incentives. Grow the business, protect

58:38

the business. In

58:40

a very interesting way, when I lived inside Google

58:43

and I worked very closely with Larry and Sergey,

58:46

Larry's point of view openly was,

58:49

if we don't do it, someone else

58:51

will do it. And we are the

58:53

good people. I loved

58:56

working with Larry and Sergey and I think they were values

58:58

driven. But the truth of

59:00

the matter is everybody thinks

59:02

they are the good people.

59:04

So leaving

59:06

it to business, you're

59:08

not leaving it to individuals. You're leaving

59:10

it to a system

59:12

that chooses to prioritize GDP

59:14

growth and profit growth over everything

59:17

else. We're leaving it to

59:19

a system that says it doesn't

59:21

matter if it's ethical as long as it's

59:23

legal. There's a mega

59:26

difference between the two. You can do a lot of

59:28

things that are not ethical, but

59:30

find the loophole that allows you to do it legally. And

59:34

I think the reality of the matter is that by

59:36

doing that, we're going to lose. On

59:38

the other hand, again, it's naive

59:41

to expect the government to regulate.

59:43

Why? Because the US government

59:47

wants Google and Alphabet

59:49

to lead because they're afraid

59:51

that Alibaba and whichever

59:54

other Chinese companies

59:56

will lead. So they

59:58

don't have the system. that

1:00:00

we created as humanity is what

1:00:02

is about to kill us. I mean, I don't mean

1:00:06

kill us physically, but the system,

1:00:08

that systemic bias of constantly

1:00:11

magnifying profit and power is

1:00:13

where we are today, where every

1:00:15

single one of us knows,

1:00:18

you know, it takes a very ethical,

1:00:21

courageous position

1:00:23

to stop at a point in your life and say,

1:00:26

that's

1:00:26

it, I'm going to leave. And

1:00:29

I, you know, when I did that in 2018, understand

1:00:33

so that you don't blame those executives, that

1:00:36

until 2017, 2016, I

1:00:39

believed I was making the world better. And

1:00:42

I was, okay?

1:00:43

I think the problem with systemic

1:00:45

bias is that there is a point in

1:00:48

our constant strive for a better

1:00:51

iPhone

1:00:52

when the advantages no

1:00:55

longer outweigh the disadvantages

1:00:58

and the price we pay,

1:00:59

right? And this is where, this point

1:01:02

in my personal view, we have achieved

1:01:04

by maybe 2010, 2012, you

1:01:07

know, enough technology, anything

1:01:10

further than that has been

1:01:12

mainly to maximize profit for those corporations.

1:01:16

Now, so where does this power lie? This

1:01:18

power lies in, do not

1:01:20

subscribe to threats.

1:01:22

When meta gives you another

1:01:25

product that is mainly

1:01:28

out there to compete with Twitter, and

1:01:30

then you feel the pressure that I'm not going

1:01:32

to be on it, and so accordingly, I'm going to lose

1:01:34

my followers. I think there is a courageous

1:01:37

position that we all need to start taking by

1:01:39

saying, I'm not going to stand in line to

1:01:41

buy the iPhone 15. I'm not

1:01:43

going to subscribe to another

1:01:45

social media network that's trying

1:01:47

to use me as a product. I'm

1:01:50

not going to engage in rude

1:01:52

and aggressive conversations on social media

1:01:55

just to gratify my ego.

1:01:57

I'm not going to let the system propagate.

1:01:59

Is government going to do it on your behalf? I

1:02:02

pray to God they will. But

1:02:05

do I expect they will?

1:02:06

I don't think so. I don't think

1:02:08

they're fast enough. And I don't think their incentives

1:02:11

are aligned.

1:02:13

So when I, we talk about this

1:02:15

a lot on my other

1:02:17

podcast, Pivot. I

1:02:20

speculate, and I'm curious what you think, that

1:02:23

the first major scary

1:02:25

moment

1:02:26

or externality of AI is gonna

1:02:28

happen,

1:02:29

Q1 or Q2 of next year.

1:02:31

Spot on, spot on. It's

1:02:35

our patient zero. And it's

1:02:37

gonna be focused around misinformation

1:02:39

concerning the US election. Spot

1:02:42

on, that's exactly my prediction.

1:02:45

Okay, the first

1:02:47

realization, the problem, Scott,

1:02:49

is will we view it

1:02:51

as such?

1:02:52

Or will we get into another debate like

1:02:54

we did in previous US elections

1:02:57

of who did what, how can you prove it,

1:03:00

and so on and so forth. But

1:03:02

if you ask me, war

1:03:06

is not only fought on the battlefield.

1:03:09

War is fought economically, and it's

1:03:12

fought in the minds of the people.

1:03:17

You have no Harari's view of AI

1:03:20

hacking the operating system of humanity because

1:03:22

now it can master language better

1:03:25

than most humans can, okay? This

1:03:27

is it. If I tell you right now,

1:03:30

by the way, Scott, there is

1:03:32

a new, some

1:03:34

kind of shampoo that will grow

1:03:37

your hair within 24 hours and

1:03:39

make it red, okay? Doesn't

1:03:42

matter if what I told you is right or wrong.

1:03:44

This, I have just seen. Amen. Exactly,

1:03:47

right? I have. Exactly. I

1:03:49

have seeded an idea in your head that

1:03:52

requires you to verify

1:03:55

or approve or disapprove,

1:03:57

and I have just occupied your head already.

1:03:59

And there are so many ways that

1:04:02

you can influence a human's perception

1:04:05

of the world that are entirely

1:04:08

in the hands of the machines.

1:04:09

People don't understand this. You

1:04:11

have

1:04:12

at least 90% of the information

1:04:15

you receive today was dictated

1:04:17

by a machine. Everything you see on social

1:04:19

media is dictated by a machine. Every

1:04:22

ad you see next to Google is dictated by

1:04:24

a machine. Anything that displays

1:04:27

to you as organic results,

1:04:29

it's organic as per the machine of Google.

1:04:32

Four of the top 10

1:04:35

apps on the App Store this

1:04:39

last month were generated by

1:04:41

machines.

1:04:43

So

1:04:46

do you think... Well, I don't

1:04:48

want to cheapen the conversation about talking about

1:04:50

corporations and shareholder value, but I can't help

1:04:53

it. It strikes

1:04:55

me that overnight Alphabet

1:04:57

appeared, went from being what was arguably

1:04:59

the most innovative organization in the world to being

1:05:01

perceived as flat-footed. That

1:05:03

it was the ultimate example of the innovator's dilemma.

1:05:06

Then rather than being out in front and first on the commercialization

1:05:09

of this, they didn't want to threaten

1:05:11

this $150 billion amazing business,

1:05:13

arguably the best business in the history of business,

1:05:16

Search. And then Microsoft,

1:05:18

with less to lose around Search, came

1:05:21

in and bested them. One, do you

1:05:23

agree with that? And two, who do you think, from

1:05:25

just a pure corporate strategy

1:05:27

standpoint and intellectual property

1:05:30

and depth of domain expertise, who

1:05:32

would you argue are

1:05:33

likely going to be the big winners and losers

1:05:36

around AI's application in a corporate

1:05:38

setting? That's

1:05:40

a very multilayered question.

1:05:43

So what people probably don't

1:05:45

recognize, and maybe I'm not

1:05:48

the best person to say that, but equivalence

1:05:50

of bards were available in AI. I

1:05:53

mean, I've been using AI terms to

1:05:54

Google for a very long time.

1:05:55

Right? So

1:05:58

the idea of providing one answer

1:05:59

to your. query has

1:06:01

been definitely

1:06:03

toyed around with for a very long time. This is

1:06:05

why Bard showed up very

1:06:08

quickly after Chad GPT was on the

1:06:10

market. Correct? What

1:06:13

is in the AI labs

1:06:15

would blow you away in comparison

1:06:18

to what you out here in the world

1:06:20

will see. OK? Now,

1:06:22

the trick is this. The trick is

1:06:25

there were two reasons. In my personal view, I'm

1:06:27

not speaking on behalf of Google.

1:06:29

But one, how

1:06:32

do you monetize Bard? If

1:06:34

there is one answer to the question,

1:06:37

why do I need an ad?

1:06:38

OK? That's one side

1:06:41

of it. But the other side, which is what I loved

1:06:43

about the Google I worked in, is

1:06:46

there

1:06:46

was no arrogance around

1:06:49

the fact that there was

1:06:51

no one answer to any truth.

1:06:53

OK? So Google ethically

1:06:56

said, I don't have the right to give you one answer.

1:06:58

The choice of what answer is true is yours. OK?

1:07:01

I can only show you what everything

1:07:04

out there says. And then you choose what

1:07:06

you believe is the truth. That's a very ethical

1:07:08

position. And I respect Google for that. OK?

1:07:11

What we're doing with Chad GPT and the

1:07:13

likes today is a different

1:07:16

formatting of that one answer.

1:07:18

We're saying, look, there

1:07:20

has been two

1:07:22

million answers to the question you asked.

1:07:25

Google would list the two million answers

1:07:27

for you.

1:07:28

Transformers and language models

1:07:30

will say, and here is the average of

1:07:33

those two million answers. If we really,

1:07:35

really blend them together and give you the essence,

1:07:37

the very essence of them, as we believe

1:07:40

the essence is, here is the essence. OK?

1:07:43

Now, with

1:07:45

that, you have to understand that Google

1:07:47

then took an ethical position, saying,

1:07:50

one, we don't know the truth. So

1:07:52

we shouldn't say the truth. Two, we

1:07:55

also don't have the right

1:07:58

to put something out there that is not true. not

1:08:00

tested enough for safety, for AI

1:08:02

safety. I think that's a very responsible position.

1:08:05

The problem is it's a prisoner's dilemma. We're

1:08:08

stuck in capitalism. So the minute you

1:08:10

put chat GPT out there, Sundar

1:08:12

is in a checkmate position. So

1:08:14

what can he do other than say,

1:08:16

respond?

1:08:18

Because if he doesn't say respond, he will

1:08:20

get fired as the CEO because

1:08:23

his business is going down the drain and someone

1:08:25

else will say respond. Whoever the next person

1:08:27

is will say respond, put, put word

1:08:29

out there.

1:08:31

Yeah. And there's, I mean, I want

1:08:33

to take the glass half full approach here and that is

1:08:36

whether it was pouring mercury into the river. General

1:08:38

Motors would be pouring mercury into the river

1:08:40

from its factories right now if it hadn't been outlawed

1:08:43

because they'd be at a competitive disadvantage by

1:08:45

those who are allowed to do it. So

1:08:47

it feels to me that we just need thoughtful people such

1:08:49

as yourself advising our elected

1:08:52

representatives to form the right bodies, whether it's a

1:08:54

division of NATO or whatever

1:08:56

it might be to the UN and

1:08:58

then regulatory bodies here. And it feels

1:09:00

like there's a lot of incentive for cooperation here.

1:09:03

So just before we can

1:09:06

I just

1:09:06

publicly announce what, because

1:09:08

you said rightly that the

1:09:10

next US election is the battlefield, right?

1:09:13

This is the patient zero. I strongly

1:09:16

recommend that the US government and every

1:09:18

other government on earth criminalizes

1:09:22

fake content or AI generated content

1:09:25

that is not marked as fake or AI generated.

1:09:28

Okay. So you need a law in place that

1:09:30

says if what you're displaying

1:09:32

is found to not be actual truth,

1:09:35

you will be put in prison for the rest of your life.

1:09:38

Or what about, everyone keeps talking about an AI

1:09:41

pause. I found that letter was very naive

1:09:43

and I also found that it lost a lot of credibility

1:09:45

when it had Elon Musk sign it because I don't think he's looking for an AI

1:09:47

pause. I think he's looking for other people to pause

1:09:49

so he can catch up. I found the letter was very

1:09:53

self-defeating. But what about

1:09:56

the idea of an AI pause around all election information 90

1:09:58

days before the election? They're just trying

1:10:01

to discern what is true or not true. What

1:10:03

if you just said to all the big platforms for 90 days,

1:10:06

we need you to put a pause on all election information 90

1:10:08

days before the election. Amazing.

1:10:10

As a matter of fact, wouldn't it be wonderful if

1:10:13

we just went back to old school

1:10:15

that all information about the election is

1:10:17

removed automatically other

1:10:19

than actual debates on stage

1:10:22

filmed by old scammers? Yeah,

1:10:24

I think that's right. But

1:10:27

again, the problem is a prisoner's dilemma.

1:10:30

So by doing that, you're

1:10:32

criminal, you're penalizing

1:10:34

social media companies so they don't have that

1:10:36

content, which it's a big revenue for them.

1:10:39

You're penalizing news networks so they don't

1:10:41

have content to, you know, they don't have opinions

1:10:44

and noise and sticky eyes

1:10:46

that are staying there to listen to all of the fluff

1:10:48

and all of the arguments. And it's again,

1:10:51

the system, but you're absolutely

1:10:53

spot on. Wouldn't it be wonderful if

1:10:55

we said everything about the election

1:10:57

should be viewed in the classical old

1:10:59

form of humans talking to humans?

1:11:02

So you've been very generous through time. I just wanted to

1:11:04

touch on a moment. We share that we both

1:11:07

sort of, we're both really interested in happiness

1:11:09

or the exploration of happiness.

1:11:11

And I'm just curious, what was the transformation?

1:11:14

Why did you decide to start

1:11:16

to kind of pivot from, you know,

1:11:18

obviously these deep, really important

1:11:21

subjects, including AI and technology, and

1:11:23

start talking about happiness? Was it a, was

1:11:25

it, is it a personal pursuit or was there

1:11:27

a moment in your life where you thought you needed to spend

1:11:29

more time on this? What was the inspiration? There

1:11:32

were two moments. So first of all, I was

1:11:34

the extreme example of the grumpy,

1:11:36

rich brat. Very early

1:11:39

in my life, I made massive

1:11:41

amounts of money by understanding mathematics and

1:11:43

programming before online trading

1:11:45

was a big thing. And, you

1:11:48

know, I was,

1:11:48

as a result, as always, the more money

1:11:51

I made, the more miserable I became. And I remember

1:11:53

vividly one Saturday morning where I completely

1:11:56

broke my daughter's heart, completely broke

1:11:58

her heart. You know, she's coming. Saturday

1:12:00

morning jumping up and down and feeling

1:12:02

very happy about what we're about to do. And I look

1:12:05

at her grumpy as always, looking at my

1:12:07

laptop and say, I said, can

1:12:10

we please be serious for a moment? Okay.

1:12:13

And my daughter was five at the time and her heart

1:12:15

broke and she cried and I really realized I

1:12:17

didn't like that person. So I started to

1:12:19

research the topic of happiness. You

1:12:22

know, it took me 12 years to move from being that

1:12:25

miserable, annoying, grumpy executive

1:12:27

to being a very calm, very, very

1:12:30

open minded and cheerful

1:12:33

and nice person if you want.

1:12:36

Through that journey, I used the aid of my

1:12:38

son who was born a tiny

1:12:40

little Zen monk, always had peace in him

1:12:42

somehow, who unfortunately

1:12:45

in 2014, I was chief

1:12:47

business officer of Google X at the time. He

1:12:50

called us, he used to live in Boston and

1:12:52

he had a US tour, played

1:12:55

in a band at the time in August

1:12:57

and he basically called

1:13:00

us in June and said, can I come visit you in Dubai

1:13:02

for a week? I feel obliged to come

1:13:04

and spend time with you. And we said, sure.

1:13:07

And then he went through the simplest surgical

1:13:09

operation of an appendix inflammation. Normally

1:13:12

it takes four minutes and the patient is out, but the

1:13:14

surgeon sadly did

1:13:16

five mistakes

1:13:19

in a row. All of them were

1:13:21

preventable, all of them were fixable, but

1:13:24

within four hours, my son left our

1:13:26

ward and... No,

1:13:28

I'm so sorry. I didn't know that. No, it's

1:13:30

okay. I actually, I

1:13:33

think he's in a good place. I really do. And

1:13:35

Ali, before he left,

1:13:37

he had a dream, which he

1:13:40

spoke to his sister about the only person

1:13:42

who spoke about. So she comes running to me

1:13:44

and she says, Papa Ali told

1:13:47

me that he had a dream, that he was everywhere and

1:13:49

part of everyone,

1:13:50

which

1:13:53

in most spiritual... I didn't know

1:13:55

that at the time, but in most spiritual

1:13:58

teachings, everywhere and...

1:13:59

part of everyone is to disconnect from the

1:14:02

physical, which basically is the definition of death.

1:14:04

And so when Ali

1:14:06

died, when Ayah, my daughter, told me that

1:14:09

to my crazy executive

1:14:11

mind, Chief Business Officer of Google,

1:14:14

seven years building Google's emerging markets, it

1:14:18

translated into my mind as a quote. So

1:14:21

I somehow responded by saying,

1:14:23

sure, Habibi, consider it done. I

1:14:27

was responsible for the next four billion user

1:14:29

strategy at Google. I knew exactly how

1:14:32

to reach billions of people. And so

1:14:34

in my mind, I said, OK, I'm going to write a book.

1:14:37

And I am going to share everything my son

1:14:39

taught me about happiness. And in a

1:14:41

very selfish way, the objective of the book

1:14:43

was that a part of the essence

1:14:46

of my son Ali, which is

1:14:48

what he taught me about happiness, is going to

1:14:50

be read by enough people who

1:14:52

will tell enough people. And if I could reach 10 million

1:14:55

through six degrees of separation in 72 years

1:14:57

was my math, he would be

1:15:00

everywhere and part of everyone. That's

1:15:02

where the project started. And then somehow

1:15:05

the universe made it work. So within

1:15:08

six weeks after the book launch,

1:15:10

we were already a best seller in like eight countries.

1:15:14

My videos were viewed 180 million times. And

1:15:17

it was clear that 10 million happy was happening.

1:15:20

So we went to a billion happy as

1:15:22

a target. Basically, the rest of my life

1:15:25

was targeted for a billion happy. My

1:15:27

work on AI, believe it or not, is part

1:15:29

of a billion happy because if I

1:15:31

don't think we will be very happy

1:15:34

as humanity if we don't get AI right.

1:15:37

And so when I resigned from Google 2018,

1:15:40

I published a

1:15:42

video that was called One Billion Happy, basically

1:15:44

the name of the mission. And that

1:15:46

was entirely about that, entirely about

1:15:49

the fact that AI is going to magnify human

1:15:51

tendencies and that if

1:15:53

we continue to be rude and aggressive

1:15:55

and grumpy and unhappy and selfish

1:15:58

and so on, that this will be the mission.

1:15:59

magnification of AI. And my

1:16:02

effort has been to try and

1:16:04

magnify the true human values, love,

1:16:06

happiness, and compassion, to

1:16:09

try and say if we show enough of that

1:16:11

online, maybe we can influence

1:16:13

the views of AI so that they start to show

1:16:15

us more of that and basically expect us to

1:16:17

want more of that. And that was the

1:16:19

original work. And since then, I've

1:16:22

spent the last five,

1:16:25

six years doing nothing but this, doing,

1:16:28

you know, my dream

1:16:30

is that by the end of my life, I would have contributed

1:16:33

somehow to waking a billion

1:16:35

people up to the fact that they have the right to

1:16:37

find happiness and hopefully would

1:16:39

have spent all of the money that I've earned from Google

1:16:42

and hopefully we will be

1:16:44

forgotten enough for the mission to continue after

1:16:46

we leave as a small team.

1:16:48

So I would love your advice. I wasn't expecting

1:16:51

to go here. I lost

1:16:53

a close friend a week ago and totally

1:16:55

unexpected leukemia that just kept

1:16:57

getting worse and worse over the course of 12 months.

1:17:00

And I'm really struggling with the grief. I'm

1:17:02

just not, I wasn't prepared for it. I don't know

1:17:04

how to deal with it. That is meaningful

1:17:07

grief. You have dealt with profound grief.

1:17:09

There is, I can't imagine any more profound grief

1:17:11

than losing a child. We grow up with this comfort

1:17:14

as parents that we're going to get to go first. It's

1:17:16

a huge source of comfort that I have. What

1:17:18

advice do you have for people

1:17:21

who

1:17:21

are dealing with this type of grief?

1:17:25

Well, I mean, it's

1:17:28

difficult to

1:17:31

give any advice that would take the grief

1:17:33

away that quickly.

1:17:34

Let's just be very open and honest about

1:17:36

it. There is a finality to death that

1:17:39

contradicts everything we've

1:17:42

ever been trained to as humanity. Okay.

1:17:44

It triggers our fear. It triggers our helplessness.

1:17:47

It triggers our insecurity. We

1:17:49

cannot trust life. We

1:17:51

miss the person that we love that left us. We

1:17:54

are scared about where they are. We have

1:17:56

lots of uncertainties. It's a very overwhelming

1:17:59

trauma. And the

1:18:02

reality of the matter is that my first

1:18:04

advice is grief.

1:18:07

Fully grief. If you're

1:18:09

angry, be angry. If you're unsure,

1:18:12

be unsure. If you want to take a break, take a break. This

1:18:15

is the first step on the way. Then

1:18:20

there are two steps in my mind that

1:18:22

are one is very logical and

1:18:24

the other is very spiritual. The

1:18:27

logical one is very harsh

1:18:29

to say. It's very harsh, but it

1:18:32

is, you know, when sometimes they say

1:18:34

the truth will set you free. There's

1:18:36

absolutely nothing,

1:18:39

nothing you can ever do to bring them back. Okay,

1:18:42

so my very mathematical, logical

1:18:45

mind actually, believe it or not, went

1:18:47

out and did the research. It's like, has

1:18:49

anyone ever come back? Right? Yeah,

1:18:51

we had many people that came back from near-death

1:18:54

experiences. But you know for

1:18:56

a fact that your friend is gone.

1:18:58

Okay, the first

1:19:00

thing I started to think about after Ali left

1:19:04

was if I hit my head

1:19:06

against the wall for 27 years, he's

1:19:08

not going to come back. I'm going to

1:19:10

be torturing myself

1:19:12

and the world is not going to get better.

1:19:14

Okay, so I found in my

1:19:16

heart a space that basically said, I

1:19:19

don't know how I will get there, but

1:19:21

I will hopefully find the positive in all

1:19:23

of this. I don't know how I will get

1:19:25

there, but I will learn to accept that he

1:19:27

left.

1:19:29

And I think accepting that

1:19:31

he left, I call this committed acceptance. Committed

1:19:34

acceptance is that sometimes life

1:19:36

throws things at you that are

1:19:38

so final.

1:19:40

You know, from

1:19:42

the silliest thing of being stuck in

1:19:45

traffic when you have an appointment that you're

1:19:47

about to miss. Okay, all the

1:19:49

way to losing a loved one. There are very

1:19:52

frequent things that happen in your life that are

1:19:54

out of your control. And what

1:19:57

I say is committed acceptance.

1:19:59

Accept that this is your new baseline.

1:20:02

Accept logically and

1:20:04

emotionally that as painful as it is,

1:20:06

this is the end of that hug that

1:20:08

I could get from my son. It's not going to happen again.

1:20:11

And then commit to make your life and

1:20:13

the lives of those around you better,

1:20:15

despite the pain,

1:20:17

which is a very interesting thing. You don't have to know how.

1:20:19

You do not have to know how. You just tell yourself,

1:20:22

now that I've accepted this tragedy,

1:20:25

I accepted this pain, I'm going to

1:20:27

crawl out of it. Maybe the world is crawled

1:20:29

out of it. I'm going to do one thing today

1:20:32

that makes my life better than yesterday. And I'm

1:20:34

going to do another thing tomorrow that makes

1:20:36

life a little better than today. That's

1:20:39

it. Okay. So this is the practical

1:20:42

side, if you want. The spiritual

1:20:44

side, I think, is very key so that I don't

1:20:47

lie to people. Okay. And in my first

1:20:49

book, Souls for Happy, I spoke about

1:20:51

the concept of death

1:20:53

from a physics point of view.

1:20:55

Okay. We struggle

1:20:57

with the scientific method in understanding

1:21:00

anything that we can't

1:21:03

measure. And

1:21:06

you cannot measure what happens after we die. Okay.

1:21:09

But there are lots of concepts in quantum

1:21:12

physics specifically, and

1:21:14

with the idea of theory of relativity and the fact

1:21:16

that space time completely exists. Maybe

1:21:18

you shouldn't go into those today. But

1:21:21

that will tell you that life is separate

1:21:23

from the physical. Call it consciousness. Call

1:21:26

it spirit or soul

1:21:28

like religions call it. But there is a non-physical

1:21:30

element to us. That non-physical element is

1:21:33

the part that disconnected

1:21:35

from my son's body when he left. And

1:21:37

that same handsome form of his that

1:21:40

was on the intensive care table

1:21:42

was no longer him. You could feel it. You

1:21:45

could feel that his essence was no longer there. And

1:21:49

if you can accept the fact that there is a non-physical

1:21:51

element to us, okay, that non-physical

1:21:54

element by definition exists outside

1:21:56

space time because otherwise it wouldn't be able to

1:21:58

perceive time and the path. passage of time, it's a simple

1:22:01

object-subject relationship, then

1:22:04

that non-physical element is not affected

1:22:06

by the events of the physical. So my son

1:22:09

really never died. So

1:22:11

my son's physical form was

1:22:14

born and my son's physical form

1:22:16

was decayed, but the essence

1:22:18

of my son, his consciousness, has never

1:22:21

gone anywhere. And when you really understand

1:22:23

this, you understand that death is not the opposite

1:22:25

of life. Death is the opposite of

1:22:27

birth. And life exists

1:22:30

before, during, and after. That

1:22:32

I don't expect everyone to agree with.

1:22:35

But to me, because I see it from a physics

1:22:37

point of view more than a religious point of view, I

1:22:40

tend to believe that my son is okay. I

1:22:43

don't know okay how, but I

1:22:45

know for a fact that I will join him sooner

1:22:47

or later and that I too will leave

1:22:49

this physical form and that I too

1:22:52

will be okay. And if I am

1:22:54

optimistic about my life, it may take 25 more

1:22:57

years before I leave.

1:23:00

But if I look back at my last 56 that

1:23:02

passed literally like that, then 25

1:23:05

is not that long. So in my heart,

1:23:07

I have a certainty that I will be

1:23:09

there too. And I

1:23:11

think there is not a bad place.

1:23:14

There is not even a place. It's not

1:23:16

even a time.

1:23:17

It's an eternity of consciousness. And

1:23:19

that's the truth of who we are. Very

1:23:22

difficult to explain that quickly.

1:23:24

But at the end of the day,

1:23:26

I don't see the departure of my son

1:23:29

necessarily as a bad thing.

1:23:31

Not for him. And

1:23:32

definitely not for the world that benefited

1:23:35

from his departure. It's just very

1:23:37

painful for me. And if it's painful

1:23:39

for me, then I'm the one responsible

1:23:42

for managing that pain. I'm the one responsible

1:23:44

for dealing with that pain, because that pain

1:23:46

doesn't add any positivity to me at all.

1:23:50

Most

1:24:00

Switch Gear has made happiness his primary focus.

1:24:03

In 2020, he launched his podcast, Slow

1:24:05

Mo, a podcast with

1:24:07

Mo Gaddat. He joined us

1:24:09

from Dubai. Mo, I mean this so sincerely.

1:24:12

This was very meaningful, and I appreciate

1:24:14

your good work, and generally

1:24:16

just really wish the best for you and yours.

1:24:19

And so appreciate not

1:24:21

only how thoughtful and how just incisive

1:24:23

you are, but how spiritual and authentic

1:24:26

you are. Really appreciate your time. I

1:24:28

really can't thank you enough, Scott. So

1:24:29

not for the opportunity,

1:24:32

not just for the opportunity to speak to your audience,

1:24:34

but I really felt connected during this conversation.

1:24:36

I really enjoyed the

1:24:39

level of depth that we went into, and I'm

1:24:41

really grateful for that.

1:24:51

Algebra of happiness. I had a close friend

1:24:53

pass away last week. My friend

1:24:55

Scott Sabah, 54 I

1:24:59

believe, literally almost

1:25:02

a year ago, maybe 15 months ago, we went to loom together.

1:25:04

We were sort of, not sort of, we were

1:25:06

close friends. And we like to do the

1:25:08

same things. We like to go out, we like to party, we

1:25:10

like to drink. And

1:25:13

lived in New York as a real estate developer, graduated

1:25:16

from USC. Three

1:25:18

kids, two that just graduated from USC,

1:25:21

one who was a freshman at UVA. I

1:25:24

met Scott probably 15 years ago. We

1:25:26

lived in the same building. And

1:25:29

we just hit it off and started traveling together.

1:25:31

And whenever I was in New York, I would just call Scott. And

1:25:33

he was always up for going

1:25:36

and grabbing a drink with me at Zero

1:25:38

Bond. Or he was kind of cool

1:25:40

with me. I'd go

1:25:42

to the same places over and over. And

1:25:45

Scott would always find his cooler places in the East Village. He

1:25:47

just kind of knew what was going on. Nice

1:25:49

man, ton of fun, great shape.

1:25:51

Year ago, bump on his head, ends

1:25:54

up it's leukemia, no problem. We're going to treat it with pills,

1:25:56

not chemo. You don't need it. Oh, the

1:25:58

pills aren't working. We need to go to chemo.

1:26:02

Oh no, it's, you know, it looked

1:26:05

like it was better, but now it's converted to something much

1:26:07

more serious. I think it was called Richters. And

1:26:10

we need to do a stem cell transplant. Okay,

1:26:12

your son's a match. That's good news. We're

1:26:14

literally going to reset your entire, kind

1:26:17

of your entire blood makeup. I

1:26:20

mean, even different blood type. Does the stem cell

1:26:22

transplant. Good news. It

1:26:25

worked. You're all clear. Oh

1:26:27

no, it's back. And

1:26:29

there's nothing we can do. I mean,

1:26:32

just from bad to worse to tragic.

1:26:36

And I got to be honest, I was sitting here thinking about this. Like,

1:26:38

what is the lesson here? And I don't, you

1:26:40

know, I'm struggling with this. I don't have anything

1:26:43

profound or moving or inspiring to say

1:26:45

around this. This is a tragedy.

1:26:48

And I'm struggling with it. It is something I

1:26:50

still can't wrap my head around. I've had some

1:26:52

death in my life, but not a lot. I lost my mom. So

1:26:55

when your parents die, it's sort of the natural

1:26:57

order. I think, you know, I'm not going

1:26:59

to say you're prepared for it, but at least rationally

1:27:01

it makes sense. But when you lose a friend who's healthy

1:27:03

and who's younger than you, you're just kind of struggling

1:27:06

to like wrap my head around it. The

1:27:08

only thing I can come to and the only thing

1:27:10

I would take away or what I would try and impart on people

1:27:13

is that, you know, when I

1:27:15

would text him towards the

1:27:17

end, I would say, you know, I love you.