Radio Better Offline: Adam Becker

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Also media, step up to the slop trough. It's time
for better offline and I'm your host ed ze Tron.
As ever by the merchandise sign up to the newsletter

(00:23):
message me on goot. I'm everywhere. But today I'm joined
by the author of a book about how much I
should be punished, what punishments I deserve, and how long
I should be punished. I'm of course talking about more
Everything Forever, written by astrophysicist Adam Becker.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Adam, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me ed,
It's good to be here. What's the book actually about?
I apologize now, it's okay. The book is actually about
the horrible ideas that tech billionaires have about the future
that they're trying to shove down our throats, and why
they don't work.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
You're an astrophysicist, right.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, by training, what is that? Well, I did a
PhD in astrophysics looking at how much we could learn
about what was happening right after the Big Bang by
looking at what was happening in the universe. You know
what's happening in the universe right now.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
So how did you get into the touching in the
world of Silicon Valley because you have to talk about
some of the damnest bavots I've ever done.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Sane. Yeah. Well, I started out my career as a
science journalist straight out of grad school and was writing
mostly about physics.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Why are you writing?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
I was writing for pretty much everybody. I started at
New Scientists and then moved on to writing for the BBC,
wrote a book about quantum physics, wrote some stuff for NPR,
the New York Times, very co American. Yeah, and you know,
like was sort of having a normal science journalist career,
and then in twenty sixteen, the weirdest fucking thing happened.
What happened? You know? We elected a fascist? Oh right, yeah,

(01:49):
that thing, yeah, that thing.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
And I thought, oh, you know I should be doing
something more to, you know, directly combat this. If I
write another book, I would like it to have a
more directly political angle, right, and uh. I live in Berkeley,
I live in the San Francisco Bay area and just
surrounded by tech bros constantly and was getting tired of

(02:12):
their bullshit and it seemed more and more directly connected
to the disintegration of American politics. And I thought, Okay,
you know, somebody needs to write about how they have
these insane ideas about the future and how that informs
their terrible politics. So how long have you lived in
the Bay? God, oh, thirteen years?

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay, so you've got like a good backing of where
the bay has been in that time as well, because
I think a lot of these people are transplants. And
I say this is someone who literally moved to the
Bay for two years in twenty fourteen. Yeah, like and
even then it was weird watching what they were doing.
Yeah but wait, so that was so you've been there
thirteen years. But when did the book get started? Like,
how did all this because it's this kind of came

(02:57):
out of no way in a good way.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, yeah, No, I got started on the book probably
the first inklings of it were around twenty nineteen or
twenty twenty, right before the pandemic. I uncovered a online
magazine that was trying to sanewash creationism and climate denial
that was being funded by Peter Teel. Hell yeah yeah,

(03:20):
And I broke that story and thought, oh, yeah, yeah,
these these tech bros are awful and everybody thinks they
know a lot about science and technology. Even the people
who don't like them seem to think that they know
a lot about science and technology, right, and it's just
not true. Like they don't know anything about physics, they

(03:41):
don't know anything about biology. Peter Teel thinks that creationism
is you know, plausible, or that evolution isn't the whole story.
That's nonsense, you know. Elon Musk thinks that we can
live on Mars. That's nonsense, or at least he says that.
Whether he actually believes it, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
But that's actually kind of my question. Yeah, how much
of this shit do you actually think they believe? Because
I know Bezos is tied up with the long Now Foundation. Yeah,
and they do make nice tea over there. However, the
rest of the stuff not so good. But how much
do they really believe in this? Because I just I
you've said that this is kind of a homecoming for them.
This is kind of them coming back to the things

(04:19):
they truly believe. I don't think they believe in anything thing.
I think some of them don't believe in anything. Go
into I'm not saying, I'm you know that's really right here?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Absolutely. Yeah. So, like, for example, I think it's very plausible. Obviously,
we can't know for sure, but I think it's very
plausible that, say, Sam Altman doesn't believe in anything. Yeah,
that's quite possible. Yeah right. Karen Howell makes a good
case for that in her reporting and in her.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Books Excellent, being a guest on the show, she's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
She's amazing. But at the other end of the spectrum,
I think it's very plausible that Jeff Bezos really really
does believe that we need to go to space. And
the reason I say that is he when he was
the vale edictorian of his high school down in Florida
in like nineteen seventy eight or something like that, he

(05:07):
gave a speech about how we need to go to space,
we humanity need to go to That.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Doesn't feel as ludicrous as a belief like we go
to space. But what does go to space mean for
this guy?

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, that's the thing. The specifics of that belief that
he professed at the time are pretty similar to what
he's saying now, and it is pretty ridiculous, like he
has said very recently, and it echoes the stuff from
his valedictorian speech when he was like eighteen, that we
need to move into you know, hundreds of thousands or

(05:38):
millions of enormous cylindrical space stations. Oh, of course. And
have you know a trillion people living in the Solar.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
System tubes, yes, of trillions of peach exactly, do just
work really well, like the hyperloop for example, Yeah, a
successful tube.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yes, or you know the Internet itself a series of tubes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
And because those tubes in the Internet worked, of course,
the tubes work in space.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, that's I think that the bongo.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, yeah, this is science. I believe I failed all
the sciences. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry, but no,
keep going.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah. So you know, he said, then we can like
make Earth into a beautiful park that you know, allows
us to you know, save the environments. I know. And
he said, when we have a trillion people living in
the Solar System, we can have a thousand Mozarts and
a thousand Einstein's. I'm like, buddy, we probably already have
people who are just as talented as Mozart and Einstein

(06:27):
and all the other geniuses of history who are living
and dying in poverty. Yes, and you know you don't
care about that, And you don't seem to care about
climate change because you know, the carbon footprint of the
Blue Origin rockets and the Amazon warehouses and all that stuff, right,
But instead of that, he's like, no, no, no, the solution
is to go to space. Like, why that's not gonna work.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Because more space is up in space, Adam, you put
cube and sp It's really it's funny because these people
are insanely rich but also sound very stupid. Yeah, when
you really get down to the trumps of its life,
what's your solution, Jeff of Gold, the money in the
world tubes yep, tubes of space tubes, yep, trillion people,
mozarts more mozarts, just sweating.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Profusely, exactly. Yeah, And he does try to give an argument,
but the argument is hilariously bad. He says that we
need to go to space, among other reasons, like he's
all that environmental stuff, but he the thing he keeps
harping on and coming back to is he says, we
need to keep using more energy per capita?

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Right, why?

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Right? Why? Exactly? He never says exactly WHOA Okay, Yeah,
he says. The only defense he gives for that is
he says, if we don't do that, we'll have a
civilization of stagnation and stasis.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
As opposed to now when there's tons of innovation happening
and all of big tech is focused on a diverse
series of options rather than one big expensive dogshit thing.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Precisely, he nailed it. Yeah, and he says we have
to go to space because like otherwise, we're gonna run
out of energy here on Earth. We won't be able
to keep expanding the energy we used per capita. What
does the energy do?

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Well?

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, first of all, what does the energy do? And second, uh,
this is this is actually my favorite part. Hell yeah,
he is right that if you just like idiotically kept
that trend going in a way that's physically impossible, you know,
for for hundreds of years, you would run out of
energy here on Earth. Like you, you wouldn't be able
to keep the energy users per capita growing at the

(08:26):
exponential rate that it has been in about three hundred
years of be using all the energy that we get
from the Sun here on the Earth. But if you
keep that trend going, if you try to do that
by you know, going out and living in tubes in
the solar system, right, that only gets you like another
few hundred maybe one thousand years. Then you're using all
the energy that comes from the sun.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Right, and we've still not really established what we're using
the energy for. Nope, nope, no, so Beata sentus Yeah, finally.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Right, and this and this brings us to like the
bullshit that Sam Altman said about building a dice and sphere.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Exclaim what a dice sphere is? I thought it was
the ball on the fucking vacuum.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
But yeah, no, that's the only kind of dice and
sphere that actually exists. No, a dice in sphere is
a giant, mega construction project, you know, beyond anything that
anyone's ever actually built or probably could build. That just
encloses a star and captures all of the energy from

(09:23):
that star.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Right, and if we ever built anything like that, no,
of course, okay, just making sure we So it's building
a big.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Around the star to capture all of the energy from
that star to use it for data.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Where would the energy How would the energy get from
the star to Earth?

Speaker 2 (09:43):
I mean, oh, tubes, yeah, toobes exactly. Yeah, so I battery.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, like, it's so safe, it's so cool. We live
in a site. I wish I could do what he does.
I would be saying shit all the time. I just
I'd be like, yeah, actually, you need we can change
the world if we just create a series of tubes
that just gave me money every day. No, wait, that's
too that's that's too obvious. I'd need to come up
with the best.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Well no, I mean, I just think it's pretty interesting
that these guys are spouting obvious bullshit and the only
reason people listen to them is that they're rich. Like
if if they weren't saying this stuff, but then I
went around saying this stuff, nobody would listen to me
unless they funded me.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
If a guy on the street who smelled kind of
bad walked up to you and said, the price of
intelligence is getting too cheap to meet her, you'd be like,
all right, mate, yeah, can't do anything but clammy Sammy
says it and everyone loses their fucking shit.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well yeah, and that that Actually, that brings me to
something else that we were plenty to talk about, you know,
speaking of weird dudes on the street who are not
billionaires making insane claims. Ellie azer yod Kowski.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
That's how you say his name, don't even Liza, I
don't really. Here's the thing. He's a disrespectful sex is
more on Grift. So I really don't give a shit.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, no, it is rather bizarre that anybody listens to
anything he has to say about anything he's So, who
is the fuck this fuck? Nun? No? No, the the
alternate title for my book, like in my head the
head Kennon was these fucking people. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
No, No, I write these fucking bosses a lot. Right,
Ellie's a Yudkowski?

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yes, who what does he do? Why does what does
he do?

Speaker 1 (11:19):
And why does so many seemingly smart people believe this tipshit?

Speaker 2 (11:23):
So Ellie as a Judkowski, I'm gonna give you, like
the formal version of who he is, what he might say,
what would be in like his online bio, and then
I'll tell you the reality. Okay, so uh. Ellie as
a jud Kowski is the co founder of the Machine
Intelligence Research Institute, which has been around for about twenty

(11:43):
five years, and he has been researching artificial superintelligence for
all of that time and mostly going on about how
dangerous it could be if anybody built it without ensuring
that it would serve human.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
And this is just to be clear. He has no
scientific knowledge. Can he even code? Like? Does he have
any kind of.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
He doesn't even have a high school diploma.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
So I won't judge people for that, but I'll judge
him for all the rest of here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, no, no, I'm not judging him for not but that
it doesn't really make Filly full of confidence. No, no, no, no,
he has no formal qualifications. And again, that's fine. You know,
there are many people who've made major contributions to many
fields of human endeavor without any formal qualifications. Right, that's fine.
The thing is, if you make extraordinary claims like he's making,

(12:35):
you need extraordinary evidence, and not having those qualifications, like
you said, doesn't really inspire confidence. He has made a
series of really outlandish claims about what the future of
AI could be, right, based on essentially nothing, based on

(12:55):
like reading a bunch of science fiction. He explicitly cites,
uh science fiction. There's like verner VINGI, as you know,
oh verner Vingie wrote a bunch of books like Marooned
in Real Time and uh god, I'm trying to remember
the names of the others. It doesn't matter. Point is, yeah,
he's a fiction writer who's also I think a scientist

(13:16):
of some stripe I don't remember what, but still writing
fiction and VINGI came up with this idea, or was
one of the originators of and popularizers of an idea
called the singularity. Right, So the singularity is this idea
that the rate of technological change is just going to
keep getting faster and faster, and specifically, the rate of

(13:40):
intelligence of AI is going to keep getting smarter and smarter, uh,
until we reach this sort of point of no return
where we have a singularity accompanied by an intelligence explosion that.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Leads to like the singularity moment.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, the singularity moment is very ill defined.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Oh and the I can't fucking believe this. Yeah, I've
heard this bollocks so many times. I thought they had
a moment. I thought they had a point.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
No, not really, oh you yeah, So like Kurzweil, right,
the patron saint of evangelizing the Singularity, the guy who
read the Singularity is Nearer, and then the sequel last year,
the Singularity is Nearer, which is the real fucking title. Bro,
I know that's the real title of the book.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
But his next books just called sorry, yeah no, it's
his next books, Like it's here again, you see, it
is the Singularity in the room with us, Yes, exactly,
but he doesn't.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
He tries to, but it's incredibly vague. He says, like
Kurzweil says, the singularity is going to be here in
twenty forty five. He also said in two thousand and five,
and the singularity is near that, you know, we would
have all kinds of nanotechnology by now. They love nanotechty,
they love nanotechnology. They use it as a synonym for magic.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
It was, I swear to God. Also, there was a
nanotechnology bubble briefly like ten years ago. I vaguely remember
them trying.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
It didn't really go any I mean, there was also
a nanotech sort of hype bubble back in the eighties
and nineties, and it also didn't go anywhere. And it
didn't go anywhere because it turns out that like this
idea of nanotech is like magic pixie dust that fixes
everything is nonsense and it's a real like it's being

(15:20):
echoed right now in the AI bubble. Yeah right. It's
the same kind of hype, often pushed by the same
people with the same logic, sometimes working at like the
same nonprofits. I mean, Yudkowski talks about nanotech constantly. It's
in his new book it's all over you know, the
website that he's created. Uh.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
And his book is called if You Buy this book
called Mike Money. Yeah, that's sorry, It's called if They
Built This Everyone. It's such a stupid fucking title.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Sorry. Yeah, no, it's a very stupid title. I will
say the one thing I'll say about Yudkowski. I am
sure that he is a true believer. He is not
a Yes, he's not a grifter. Why because, like it's
it's hard to explain, but I am so much more
sure about him than I am about anybody else, even base.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
I trust your judgment. It's just he gives off the
air of like a despot for a mad men.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah. I would say the best way to think about Yudkowski,
like the way that I often think about him, is
imagine like a really smart, self educated fifteen year old.
Yeah yeah, and like, you know, because if a fifteen
year old was running around saying the stuff that Yudkowski
is saying right now, I'd be like, wow, bright kid.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
I hope he grows out, and I hope his parents
have a lock on the gung capin.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah, well, and also like I hope he
you know, I hope he grows up.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yes, and I'm still thinking that.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, And like, and I don't think jud Kowski did.
I think, you know, I think like.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
I also think everybody fell for it.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, Like he got a
lot of support online. He you know, he got money
from Peterman.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Sam Moltman said that he could, he should, he may
win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
One yeah, yeah, sam Moltman said that he should win
a Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Falling down moment if that happens.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, no, that's not happening.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Defense.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, no, there's no way. But like, look, he got
a bunch of money from Peter Teal because Teal thought that,
you know, j had Kowski was saying smart stuff about AI, right.
Teal now doesn't much like jud Kowski because he thinks
jud Kowski is too pessimistic. But the sort of the
damage has been.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
The ultimate Oh yeah yeah, classic old grins and smiles
of that foul.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah no, too pessimistic for Peter Teal.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
That's actually bad.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah no it is, no, it's but no, he's he's
a true believer. He's just kind of nuts.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
So what does he do all day? I say this
as a blogger pr person news, newsletter writer and podcaster
and all this ship Like I realize I have an
email job, Fine, but at least I can tell tell
you what I do all day. What does he do
with like go to parties with people at Kevin Rusan
going the computer's going to kill us all.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
I think that's a good chunk of it. And I
also think he writes an enormous amount right, Like, this
is a guy who wrote that, you know, Harry Potter
fan fiction that's longer than War in Peace. Right, he
wrote like a one and a half million word BDSM
decision theory novel.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
I say this as someone who writes a lot, a
lot of words. That's an unhealthy amount of words.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
I agree, and it does help. I think for him
being able to write that many words, he's not a
very good writer.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah. I mean even again, I write fifteen thousand word blogs,
so I can't really judge him too harsh. But one
point five million words, how do you even know what
it's about?

Speaker 2 (18:41):
At that point? I only know what it's about because
that's what he said it's about. I haven't read that one.
I did read most of the Harry Potter one research. Yeah, bad,
it was really really incredible.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Any any sexism or racism in there, it's just strange.
I mean it's JK.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Rowling, So yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a good question. I
don't remember anything specif big good.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, I mean it's just strange.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah. I mean, he's definitely got a heart on for
eugenics and.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
These and this is somewhat paraphrasing the comic book Preacher,
but it's like, why do these fucking guys always look
like that?

Speaker 2 (19:20):
If you're gonna claim.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
You're like a eugenicist, you should not look like an
egg with a hat on. And I won't get into
but I don't generally get into personal appearance because I'm
self conscious myself. But it's like, if your whole thing
is like, yeah, we need to make the perfect human beings,
it's like, you can't look like that, mate, I'm sorry,
you can't do that.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Well I don't.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
I guess you can. You'll be in the New York
fucking Times.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah. No, it's it's crazy. It is really crazy that
anybody listens to him. But no, he's really into eugenics.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Why do they listen to him?

Speaker 2 (19:53):
He's really into evolutionary psychology, and he's got like the
sexism and racism that's like tied up in that. Why
do people listen to him? I mean part of it
is that he got that money from those billionaires, right.
He was hanging out in the bay saying the kind
of insane contrarian shit about AI that attracts the kind

(20:15):
of like brain dead billionaires like Peter Thiel. And then
you know, he became the guy and started, you know,
a series of online platforms that attracted a following, right,
like you know, Less Wrong, and then that spun off
this whole rationalist subculture. Yeah, that's a very good question.

(20:39):
Less Wrong is an online platform that serve slash maybe
served as a home and like epicenter for this movement
called the Rationalists, right, which are sort of formed around
Yudkowski's writing, include this set of writings he has called

(21:01):
The Sequences where he lays out, Oh he's a cult leader,
yeah in a way. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
The rationalists are just people, I'm guessing, guys with triobies
who say that we need to focus on ration, rational
thoughts and logic.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
And there's a lot of it. I mean, some of
them are women, but some of them are non.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Baring, really surprising yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
I mean, look, there are nerds of all stripes.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yes, And also he's very much playing in the older Internet. Yes,
but the idea of a large forum with any kind
of following is actually kind of adorable these days, except
when it's less wrong, it's not adorable. Well.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Also, less wrong's been around since the somewhat older Internet, right,
it's not been around since the nineties, but it's been
around since like the mid to late two thousands. Okay,
And Yudkowski is you know, a lot of the rationalists
are in their twenties and maybe early thirties, but Yudkowski
himself is in his mid forties, right, because you know,

(21:55):
he he is terminally online. And I'm sure, like obviously
he'd be unhapy be with many of the things I've
said about him, but that one I'm sure he'd agree with.
You know, like he's been online since he dropped out
of school at age what like thirteen or fourteen. He's
been online since the mid nineties on like butta yeah,
and like you know, he was on transhumanist forums like

(22:19):
like you know, since the mid nineties, like email threats
and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
God, yeah, he really he is like the detritus of
the Internet in a way brought to like Katamari of
center right freaks.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah, bearing ever right. I wouldn't even say center right.
I would say techno libertarian. But that is just that's
just right. Oh, no, it is right wing. It's the
center part that I disagreed with.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, perhaps he started that when he was fifteen, before
he learned yeah, the wrong things.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, I will say he like I don't get the
sense that like he likes Donald Trump, but he certainly
like will parrot a lot of standard libertarian talking saints
along the way to you know, making his The one thing.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
I keep thinking though, is I don't know if I
can shake this thing he's a grifter just because you're
taking a bunch of twenty year olds, you've got all
of this writing thing. He's either a grifter or a
true cult leader. He may actually just be a cult leader.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Why I would say cult leader is.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Closer, Yeah, because he seems to I mean, dangerous is
probably the wrong word.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, I think that's straight.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
He's not.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
I wouldn't call him dangerous, but he is.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
You think the only dangerous to like a hot topic worker,
a very nerdy hot topic No, No, no, no to them,
just just that he'd speak to them. It's just peculiar

(23:52):
as well, because and this actually gets into some of
your science background when you got my continual frustration because
I am self taught with all this economic stuff which
is insane, I probably shouldn't criticize you had Kowski quite
as much, but I will. I'm a hypocrite. I looking
through financial journalism and tech journalism. The thing that I
keep noticing is that people keep accepting things that I've
just patently wrong. There's just shit that they say, like

(24:15):
even with this in video Open AI deal, people saying
and Video invested one hundred billion dollars. They didn't. They're
investing progressively. When they do the first giga what gigawatts
of take like gig what of data center will take
about a year and a half two years. That though,
it's just bollocks. I imagine the last few years have
been a little bit mind bending for you hearing all
this stuff about Agi and the future and all that.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah gobshite, Yes, yeah, I mean the AGI stuff, which,
like I started working on this book before chatch Ept
came out right, and it.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Was twenty nineteen, a few years into Open a eyes.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah exactly. So like I knew about open AI, and
I knew about like transformer models, but like you know,
chat GPT comes out and and suddenly, you know, the
public conversation shifts in a way that I didn't anticipate.
I realize, oh, this book is going to have to
be a little bit different than I thought it was
going to be. But also, you know, all of this

(25:16):
conversation about AGI, right, like in a way it helped
me for writing the book because I thought I was
going to have to spend a lot of time in
the book explaining what AI is, what people think AGI is, right,
There's gonna be a lot more explanation, And then all
of this stuff came out and I'm like, oh, actually, this,
you know, I can I can spend more time in
the meat of the book. This is this is helpful

(25:38):
for me because you could just quote them directly exactly. Yeah.
But the thing is, AGI is this hopelessly ill defined
thing like super intelligence, this thing that that yed Kowski
is on about. Uh you know, what does it even mean?
Like have you looked at the definition of AGI in
the open AI charter like the original one? Oh yeah, no,
it's great, Like the original charter from way back. It

(26:01):
says something like AGI is a machine that can reproduce
any economically viable or economically productive activity that humans engage in.
That's a bad definition.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
That's anything. Yeah, I mean that could just mean anything
that could. It's it's a machine that can do anything.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
It's both vague and really narrow, right, because it's like, Okay,
I thought AGI was supposed to be like, you know,
commander data on Star Trek, right, and so that means
you know, it's gonna be sort of like humans. It
can do the things that.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Humans do, also economically viable work. And the first thing
they start with is fucking writing. Yeah, like Jesus Christ.
That's like, oh my god. Yeah, the first and the most.
We're gonna build boats and sell like we're gonna buy
boats as an investment vehicle, like like what the fuck?

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, these people don't do any real work.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
It's it's so strange as well, because the AGI conversation
almost never happened. It's about AGI. It's because my favorite
thing to do is media.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Go.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Isn't this slavery? Because it is. It's like, oh, yeah,
we'll do an autonomous thing. We'll make do things, but
it will be conscious, which will allow it to work better.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yep. And so then you get people talking about like
a data center filled with geniuses, and like, oh, okay,
wouldn't a data center filled with geniuses not want to
work for you?

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Wouldn't a dat ascent of full of geniuses that can't
leave and have to work be cold to prison?

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yep? Yeah? Cool, yeah, exactly. No, I I get into
this in my book. You know, the inspiration for a
lot of these ideas ultimately traces back to mid twentieth
century science fiction, right, And so you get people like
Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, right, Asimov's robot stories in particular.

(27:44):
If you go back and look at Asimov's robot stories,
it is very hard with like a modern eye to
look at them as, especially certain ones of them. It's
hard to see them as anything other than like kind
of being about slavery and race relationships, because you get like,
for example, there's this one short story I think it's
called Oh God, I think it's called Catch that Robot,

(28:08):
but I might be confusing it with a different one.
It might be a little Lost Robot. I get those
two confused. But either way, it's about a robot that
is trying to escape gain its freedom. And in that story,
the humans are like addressing a bunch of they're interviewing
a bunch of seemingly identical robots to try to find
the one that they're looking for that's trying to escape.

(28:31):
And they interview these robots and when they're interviewing them,
they address them as boy, and the robots called the
humans Master. Yeah, And these stories are from like nineteen
fifty five, like you know, the Jim Crow South is
alive and well, it's really bad, it's really really uncomfortable.

(28:53):
And then like forty years later, in the nineteen nineties,
you get Werner Vingi writing about the singularity and how
great it's going to be when we all have these
robot assistants, and he refers to Asmov's wonderful dream of
and this is a direct quote from Vingi. Willing slaves
Jesus fucking Christ. Yes, And that's something that someone wrote

(29:16):
in like nineteen ninety one. I mean, but that's what
this is.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
And this is an uncomfortable topic because that's what this is.
It's what pisses me off, other than like nineteen other
things about Kevin Bruce at the time, because he's written
several things about AI and AGI and one thing about
AI welfare, and it's like the AI welfare begins with slavery.
And if you can't write that, you're a fucking coward
and a bitch. I'm sorry you can't write. Yeah, everyone

(29:40):
is excited about slavery because that's what it is, and
it's nothing else. It's not oh well, it's like they
wouldn't be. They wouldn't be. They like doing it, and
it's like, fuck you man, that it's slavery. What I
really hope happens is if AGI happens, it's just a
just a regular dude, yep, and he's lazy and he's
a yeah, like you just do this. What I think

(30:05):
that's way more likely is I don't think AGI is possible.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah. No, Actually that's a good question. Do you think
it's possible? Not really? No likely?

Speaker 1 (30:14):
I say this is a non scientific person.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, yeah, no, I don't think that you can build. Well,
first of all, I think AGI is just hopelessly ill defined, right,
But if we want to say, like an artificial machine
that has the cognitive capacities of a human, like they
can do all of the tasks, like all of the
things that humans do. First of all, I think you're

(30:38):
gonna need a completely different kind of machine. I don't.
I don't think certainly. I don't think that you know,
scale is all you need. And if just scale attention, yeah,
give it, give it more data. And if you don't
have enough data to make more synthetic data with more LLM,
like dude, that why why wouldn't know? Absolutely not? But
but I also think that like there is, there's is

(31:00):
very simplistic set of ideas behind the idea of AGI, right,
and and the two that I keep coming back to
are the idea of the brain as a computer and
the idea of our bodies as like meat spacesuits for
our brains. And both of those are just wrong. The
brain is not really very much like a computer. It

(31:23):
is more like a computer than it is like say,
a clock. But there was a long history of comparing
the brain to you know, the most complex piece of
machinery that humans have at the time, right before it
was a brain, or before the brain was like a computer,
it was like a telephone network. Before that, it was
like a hydraulic system. Before that, it was like a

(31:44):
clock or a windmill, right, And it's not really actually
like I mean, it's a little like some of those things.
But the brain is like the brain, and the main different.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
We don't understand thinking, no, and we don't.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Understand exactly how the brain works. And part of that
is that the brain was not built. The brain evolved. Right.
But also we are not our brains. We are our
bodies in our environments. Right. The brain is inextricably connected
to the body, and the body works in an environment
surrounded by other bodies, in a culture, a society, a world. Right.

(32:18):
You need all of those things in order to get
the human cognition that you know. These guys are so
you know, determined to reproduce inside of a computer. If
you just take a human baby and like leave it
with a bunch of food in the woods, even if
you get rid of all the predators and everything, that

(32:39):
baby's gonna starve to get a bunch of books, man, right, yeah,
like the baby books. Yeah, if you give the if
you somehow, if you feed the baby but don't talk
to it, the baby will not grow up being able
to think properly.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Or Speakit's thinking will be vastly different.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Exactly. Yeah, and so like you need so much more
than just the brain.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
It also compresses human experience. They can play experience with learning.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
When we don't know how we learn, like we learn,
we learn intentionally but also unintentionally societal yup conditions around us,
how we felt in a particular moment. Vastly memory is
also insane yep, yep. We experience the world in this
is my personal experience. My experience of the world is
vastly different to my memory. My memory is like crystal
clear and beautiful, and my real life is a mixture
of slops. Yeah, and it's it's frustrating as well. Books

(33:28):
of these people also donut pits are like people. They
don't they don't like the human brain is kind of
like human bodies, even the dumbest dumb dumb it's kind
of amazing yep thing.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, no, And one of the things that's amazing is, Yeah,
we don't know how the human brain works. We don't
know how thinking or learning works. But what we do
know is that we don't do it in anything like
any way anything like on LLM. Yes, right, because the
amount of you know, material that we take in over
the course of the first three years of our lives.

(33:58):
When we go from not knowing a length which to
knowing a language, maybe multiple languages, is nowhere near the
amount of material that is, you know, force fed into
these llms, And yet we get the trick done, and
three year olds know things that no LLM knows.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Also, there's no affordance for the fact fact that some
people can't learn stuff like I cannot learn languages.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
I've really tried. I'm pretty trash of that too.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
But I also was really bad at like I was
uniquely bad at a lot of things. I have my
various no but I have ADHD, dyspraxia and other stuff
I won't get into. But it's I can't like certain things,
don't like the things that I pick up insanely quickly.
Other people can't. Other people can't even see the connections.
It doesn't Robert Evans actually had a really good point
on the subreddit Yes Robert, I read all your stuff,

(34:41):
where he was saying that like he is very good
at like picking up stuff like almost to me, he
can read fast than most people as long as it's
about conflict and it's no, but it's true, and it's
one of the remarkable things about the human brain. And
I think that it's actually kind of disgusting how little
appreciation that is for like human bodies and the brain,
how incredible the average busts, even average people are.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, no, and this is this is the thing. These
guys don't have a proper appreciation for the human brain
and the human body. And going back to the tech billionaires,
and I guess Yodkowski as well, they don't have an
appreciation for how remarkable Earth is in particular, right, you
know they you know, especially when you talk about somebody

(35:22):
like Bezos or Musk, they talk about Earth like it's doomed,
Like we need to get off of this planet. Yeah,
like this is this is our home. It's a remarkable place,
and there is nowhere that we could get to in
the Solar System. There's nowhere else in the Solar System
that's remotely as as hospitable as the Earth.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I also think that they want more. They want their
own land, they want their own countries, they want they
want to escape governance.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, yeah, they see they see spaces and escape from
politics because they they're like living a libertarian wet drenk, which.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Is really funny.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Because when they get that, they'll immediately do fascism.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, that's what's on the agenda.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Second, can't you cannot run away from politics to minute
you have more than one person in a room, there's good.
It's just really sad.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
And I actually think on a grander scale, they don't
have an appreciation for tech. I was just writing something
last night. It was on the way to New York
where it was like the actual state of technology is
kind of fucking amazing. Yeah, like we can message I
could message you happen to be in town, you message
me on blue Sky hundreds of miles thousands of miles away.
I was like, I'm able to write a note that
was on my computer, that's on my iPad here. I

(36:30):
know that this sounds like boosting, but it really isn't.
We have the raw tools that are just fucking incredible. Yeah,
and these people do not appreciate them. They don't appreciate them,
which is why general if AI is so fucking ugly
because it's bad technology. It's not even good technology. It's
poorly run, inefficient, endlessly expensive, and directionless.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah, and it inflicts harms on users that like we
would not accept from anything that was not subjected to
such an enormous hype cycle.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Right literally nothing, yeah, nothing, No, if ten.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Years ago you you know, took any you know person
off the street and said, hey, there's this cool new technology.
It takes up enormous amounts of electricity. It can do things.
It can do things that you know, no other piece
of technology you've ever seen can do. Also, it's very
good at talking teenagers into killing themselves. Yes, should we

(37:25):
release it into the you know, wider.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
World, And they'll say, well, no, but can do anything else?
And you, of course would say yeah. It can sometimes
write code, yeah exactly. And sometimes it also gets things
horribly wrong and.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
It writes bad pros. Yeah like, and it just kind
of makes everything feel kind of mediocre and smeared out,
yes exactly, like, yeah exactly, and it makes some people
go crazy.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
And yeah, it drives people to actually, yeah, how do
you feel about that? Like, how do you like did
you see this coming? Because this really jumped out No.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
Yeah, no, no, this surprised me. This did surprise the hell
out of me because I think that you know, these machines,
I don't even like calling them AI right, because I
think that's a marketing term. It is. Yeah, like if
you go back in time to you know, nineteen ninety
and tell me when I'm a kid, Hey, I have

(38:18):
a little device in my pocket that lets me talk
to an AI and and then you know, I would
have thought, oh, like that lets me talk to you know,
like command or data from start exciting, And instead it's this,
and I would have been like, what the hell is that? No,
AI is this marketing term. It's it's a text generation engine.
It it it produces you know, homogenized thought like product.

(38:45):
I was.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Also, I'm in the midst of a long one as usual.
It also conflates doing stuff with outputs. I know that
sounds kind of flat, but it's like that everything is
a unit of work rather than actually creating stuff. Well
that you pay an you pay a person for their
experience too. And it's just also not very good at
Stuff's pissing me. No, really, it's really bad at stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
It is. And I think, and I think that's where
you know, this sort of driving people insane is coming from, right,
Like I I like what I missed. The reason I
think I didn't see that coming is I failed to
think about how like I knew that these things just
generate text and in a lot of ways they just
sort of spit out back to you what you put

(39:32):
in right, right, which is which is an old thing
with chatbots that goes way before the LMS, goes all
the way back to Eliza, right.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Oh yeah, and that was the first the first AI computer.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, the first chapter. I wouldn't even call Eliza AI, right,
And even.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
The creator of Eliza, god huz. Yeah, this is from
Karen Howe's Empire of AI. Great bit about it in there.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, no, no, no, Eliza. Eliza was just
like a one hundred or so lines of code that
you know, you'd say I'm having a bad day, and
it would say, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah,
why are you having a bad day? Right?

Speaker 1 (40:03):
But like the gassing engine, the yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Like that's the thing I didn't think about. Oh wait,
if it just repeats back what you put in, but
it does it in a way that's compelling and convincing
to some people, that's going to just get them sort
of caught in this like dope meine self validation loop,
and that could drive them off the edge.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
And I think that there is a condescension. I judge
myself for this where I was like, oh, this doesn't
fool me, and it's like, but the harm also of
I'm very I'm blessed to have tons of people who
love me who also you give me clear feedback, which
is not just what I want to hear. But I
definitely when I was younger and very depressed, like crave
validation and crave someone to just tell me what I

(40:45):
want to hear, I definitely never thought what if someone did,
and the actual danger of having every fucking thought validated,
and also just the sheer horrors Like Matt Hughes, my
editor just did a great story about this kind of
horrible story where he's simulated someone going through a mental
health episode, and Claude was very clear to go, yeah, man,
you don't seem so good, chatchip. It's like, no, everyone

(41:07):
is not to get you made. Yeah, actually, it's in
any other tick in the world did this. You'd shut
the ship down immediately. Yeah, exactly, close it, you know,
But where's fucking Eliezer on this bullshit?

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Because this feels like.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
If you write a book about how everyone dies, this
should be the thing that if he actually believed in anything,
would he should be up saying like, hey, look, this
is what I was talking about.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Oh, I mean I I do think that he thinks
this is like an incipient version of what he's talking about.
I think, like a baby version. I think he loves it.
I think I think it helps him out well. I
think that he finds that useful for making the argument
that he made exactly. But he is not again the
argument he's making. And this is the only nice thing

(41:48):
I'll say about him. He means it, seriously, He's not
a grifter. He's three anxiety disorders in a trench coat.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Damn you put that on a fucking book, coach, stupid ass.
I can't think of any other movement in tech ever, Yeah,
there is anything like this, specifically because of how much

(42:19):
it sucks us, Like, I can't think of any maybe
the metavers and crypto, but even then, I don't like
the comparison. Yeah, they're so much smaller.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Honestly, what I keep thinking about is is that in
a way, it is taking the daily experience of the
tech billionaires and like bringing it to the masses, right,
because what is it?

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Low?

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, what is it like to be Sam Altman?

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Right?

Speaker 2 (42:44):
You've got billions of dollars and you're surrounded by people
who will never tell you no and validate your every thought.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
And they'll convince you that you understand every subject exactly.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yeah, and now, well.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
I've been saying this as well, because if you're an executive,
a machine that can write emails, readium and otherwise you
go to lunch, it's kind of magic. Yeah, but no,
I like this idea that it's the extension as well,
just this completely like separate thing that just as Yeah,
that's completely right, man, I fully agree.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Right, And so of course they don't see the harm
because that's their entire goddamn all that happens, and so
the well, but if this were bad for people, that
would mean that, you know, I'm in a bad environment.
That's unhealthy for me, and like, yeah, actually it is,
but they don't think they don't think that. But I
genuinely believe that like the best thing for the tech

(43:31):
billionaires themselves that could happen to them would be to
lose all their money, would be the best thing for
their mental health, put man of them.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, no, let me get them on the show. I
think that I could have a great chat with any
of them. Sure, just because I went to a private school.
Like a lot of these American billionaires as well, they
would get destroyed by the average scum aristocrats of old
in England, like the real blood drinkers.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
They're amateur vampire.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
No they really are though, like like they It's the
classic thing why British colonialism and American colonialism have never
matched up, because Britain was just evil. They just fucking
murdered people and destroyed communities. And they're like, why are
we're doing this? Of course we're British. This is what
we do here. What do you mean, what's a moral?
I've not heard of that.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
No, what do you mean?

Speaker 1 (44:17):
No? No, send my send my eighth cousin to to Africa,
shoot whoever you see. Like that was the horrifying stuff.
But they knew they didn't care about what people think.
I still think the billionaires care.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Oh, they definitely do. Like this is this is the
thing that which.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Is insane to me. If I had had one billion dollars,
I would no longer care.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Well, if I had a billion dollars, I would just
try to make sure that nobody knew my name and
that you know, it's the same amount.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah, well I would be posting.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
No, I think I think I'd just be done. Man,
I'd be like, okay, cool, you know, I'm gonna donate
to a bunch of causes that mattered to men, and
you know, like I still think it's bad for them
to be billionaires, and I try to try to change that,
but also like I'm just just gonna, like, you know,
hang out in a nice house with my friends and
have a good time.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
That's the problem though they don't have those.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Well, yeah, because you've heard that.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Have you ever heard the really depressing story about Elon
Musk and this guy called here was this investor who
got really cooked by COVID Peter something, and he know
this story of going over to Elon Musk's house and
there was a decanter of wine and Elon Musk picked
up the wine before it's done decanting, and then something
said something along the lines of honey, badger, don't care.
And I just want to say, that's one of the

(45:25):
saddest fucking things I've heard in my life, just absolutely,
just unfathomably depressing. Because you can get things like a
coravan that can kind of aerrate it. There are various
ways around ourration. If you're really feeling it and you
have hundreds of billions or what, however many many dollars
Elon has liquid, you could just have someone whose job
is to make sure the wine is errated. They could

(45:46):
make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. It
wouldn't matter to you. That's what you lose in the couch.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Yeah, but I think that what matters to Elon is
not doing what he's supposed to do, right. Yeah, he
can be seen as cool.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Or just drinking as quickly well, because otherwise he might
feel something.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah, I mean, I just he desperately wants to be
liked and it's never gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
It's so funny as well, because it could be so
easy for him. I know, he could just post this
lunch every day and nothing else. Then would be like,
look at this is actually what pisses me off as well, though,
because people like el must fucking sucks. It's like he
was sending people off to Aaron Bieber, a science reporter.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
In twenty one's a friend of mine.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah, that's p and like when that happened, not a
single Kara Swisher didn't say shit, then here Kevin Rouse
Case and you and on these fucking people I thought necessary,
but now.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Like must have such a bad guy. He's such a
bad No, he's always been like.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
And also he called a guy a pedophile for saving
children yep, because he wasn't allowed to send his submarine.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
No, he's never been good like this is this is
the thing that I.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Don't think any of these people enjoy anything as much
as I enjoyed diet coke. Like I'm one hundred percent
sure of that, because I love these things. Like it's
if this kills me, if this shit's meant to like
in three years, they're like, it's rat blood, Like I'm like,
I will.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Keep drinking offline brought to you by Diet Coke.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
It's rap blood. I really hope that you spokes the
show at one point, so that's the commercial. But that's
the thing, Like I'm only kind of joking because it's
I really enjoyed that coke. I'm sitting down chat and
chew with my friends. I love watching football with chat
with my friends. Like it's like there are very basic
things I enjoy. What do these people Like? These people
just must walk around in this haze of anger, yeah,

(47:23):
or like emptiness.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
I think they're they're really cut off from their own emotions,
right and like and again, that's gonna happen if you
just constantly get validation, right, you know. One of one
of the many tweets from back when Twitter was less shitty,
before Musk bought it. There are many tweets that just
like live rent free in my head, and one of
them is about the cognitive impact of being a billionaire. Yeah,

(47:48):
it ends. It's like, you know, like everything around you
is really expensive. It's just a constant every chair fifty Yeah,
in terms of the cognitive impact, it must be you know,
roughly equivalent to being kicked in the head by a
horse every day exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
I think I'd be fine, but that's my pathology, I guess,
but it no, but it's they have this weird isolated thing.
And even Benioff, who used to seem okay.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Well, I mean he his whole game was like to
be the best of the billionaires.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Which love are, and then he was just like, ah,
fuck it, yep, just fuck it. I don't give a
shit anymore. Yeah, Agent Force, it doesn't sell to anyone.
No one likes it, but it's the future agent for
us Jesus, he's.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Donated to all. I know, it's so cool.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
It must be really cool being a guy who actually
has qualifications and from from proving things to watch the
world like all these guys being like, yeah, this is
the future and just because want to go it doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
No one likes it. Yeah, I mean cool is one word.
Incredibly frustrating is another.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Right, this is this is stymying real innovation.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, yeah, I know there's opportunity costs and and also
just like actual stifling of real innovation in the effort
to achieve even possible ends that would be bad even
if we could achieve them.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
So slight directional shift. Is there anything within like science
and tech innovation that you're actually excited about? Anything you
look at and like that's fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
I mean mRNA vaccines are the first thing that comes
about exactly. Yeah, they're really awesome.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Tell them.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
I mean, like, look, you know the fact and what is.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
An mri NA vaccine said flawlessly.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, an m now I'm able. Yeah, and mRNA vaccine.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Yeah, it's the kind of thing that that you know,
we have with the COVID vaccines, right, Basically, the thing
that's so exciting about them is that they are so
much easier and faster to synthesize, right than previous vaccines.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
You know, I think the previous record before the COVID vaccine,
for you know, how long it took to develop a safe,
widely deployed vaccine with something like five to ten years, Jesus,
And then this vaccine. Most of the time delay, most
of that year that we were waiting for the vaccine
was actually a little less than a year. Most of

(50:12):
that was testing. The actual time that it took to
synthesize the damn thing was I believe on the order
of weeks.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
And what's crazy is I believe that was venture backed, right, Yeah,
some of it was venture backed, which is like, see
venu capital can be useful.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, it can be, but once Yeah, some of it
was venture backed. Some of it was backed by you know,
NIH grants. We do need those, yeah, we surefucking do.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
No.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Government funding of basic research is important and not just
because it leads to amazing technological breakthroughs like mRNA vaccines,
but also because, like basic scientific research is an important
thing for humans to do, like the same way that
art is important, right, right, but it also does enable

(50:58):
a massive scientific and technological breakthroughs. And I you know,
there's promise for MR and A vaccines to like open
up a whole new class of vaccines that you know,
for things that were previously very hard to vaccinate against.
I am not an expert in the field, but like

(51:19):
everyone I know who works in biomedicine, they they're all
very excited about this, and they're all really depressed by
the fact that, you know, we have an antifactor who
sounds like a fork that got stuck in a fucking
garbage disposal as the Health.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
And Rise from your Grave guy from that one video. Yeah, yeah,
very depressing. I I just wish we were like green
energy as well. Feels like an oh.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah, green energy was the next thing I was gonna say, Yeah, batteries,
solar panels. It's incredible.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Uh, this opportunity is there. Yeah, it's we need to innovate,
Like we are innovating.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
But like, yeah, and also like we even had the
legislation that we needed, right or some of it right,
like the you know Biden's big bill, the Build Back
Better It uh, you know, was not a perfect bill,
but it was the best environmental bill in American history. Yeah,

(52:16):
and and now you know, it's being destroyed because we
have a government in this country that that you know,
does not believe in climate change and doesn't believe in
anything other than short term profits at the expense of
everybody else, and also doesn't believe in democracy.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
That feels that feels like a big problem though, the
growth it all cause, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
I mean, that's that's the thing. And that's why my
book has the actual title that it does, rather than
going with the title these fucking people.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yeah, so these fucking people or just the Bostards. I
think it is also very good too.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
I think so too. I mean, like there's ah, it
would be so easy for them to do better, No,
like you know, to forget forget the best thing that
they could do. They're doing some of the worst things
that they could do. Doing better than they are right
now is just an incredibly low but.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Even through like very poorly guided generosity, they could very easily. Yeah,
they could just fund media outlets versus whatever it is
they're doing to them, tearing them down.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
But that would mean, you know the possibility of losing
control and losing you know, losing some of their power
and money, and they just are not willing to do
that because they've got something broken in their hearts.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
We need to heal them. No, now I think that,
I think.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
I think we need to tax their money away.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
I think that too, but I think we actually true.
My truth here is that we need to change how
we do that though. We need to start doing executive
liability hmmm. We need to make it so if like
CrowdStrike happens again, like a bunch of people potentially get
diye in the NHS system because the computer shuts down,
that satch and a DELA can lose something because it
isn't enough to find the companies. Finding the company is

(53:55):
not going to do shit unless you do scaling revenue
percentage of revenue. This is this and more and how
I become the FTC.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
No, they I'm not kind of let me.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
But it's just I feel the one of the wonderful
things of having you on is you're able to come
at this from a science communicator perspective. You're actually able
to because it's not just about what these people want.
It's the practicality of it, which is the nothing's really
happening yep. But that's the actual weirdest thing about the
real nihilism of this is that nothing seems to actually
be occurring.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, and they also act like there's not going to
be any accountability for like, forget their actions, just even
their words. Right, you know, Sam Altman says, you know,
like this this thing that just drove me up a
wall that he said about a month ago, he said that,
you know, in ten years, college graduates are going to
have really cool jobs going out to explore the solar
system in the spaceships enabled by AI. That is not happening,

(54:47):
like on the list of things that are not happening exploration. No, No,
that's not happening. He is just wrong. He's lying, right,
and he is probably still going to be alive in
ten years, and you and I are also likely still
going to be alive in ten years. And then we're
gonna say, hey, remember when he said that that, you know,
now we we can show he's just wrong and he

(55:10):
and nothing's gonna happen to.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Him and what these like this is why I'm so
harsh on media criticism as well. Yeah, the one thing
you can do is at least say area man full
of shit. Yes, stupid bastard wanks off again.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Well, this is my this is what I attempted to do.
What you do?

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Well, yeah, and it's I think that the change that
we need in our hearts is to just regularly say
this stuff. I regularly say on the show. I don't
care if you quote me, just say this shit about them. Yeah, clammy, Sammy.
He's been promising. He said that this was the year
of agents. He said that. I don't, but now I
read in the Information dot Com the next year is
the year of agents, So maybe I do. Actually, here's

(55:46):
a question for you. Yeah, AI twenty twenty seven. Do
you read that.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
He've read a little bit of it. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Why do you think things like that fool so many people?

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Though?

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Why do you think it got the media coverage it did?

Speaker 2 (56:00):
See? Sh I mean? Part of it is bad journalism, right.
Part of it is is that Kevin Russ has confused
Kevin and Russ has confused reiterating the views of the wealthy,
influential and powerful with taking a brave contrarian stance. And

(56:22):
how he made that mistake I don't know, but you know,
I really get the sense that he thinks he's being
very brave when he's doing exactly what journalists are not
supposed to do, which is just uncritically parroting powerful.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
And it feels like it's the large language model again.
It's just the affirming thing. It's like, oh, I'm being
contrarian by stepping out against these people who say it
isn't making any money and isn't very good at stuff.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
And it's like, look, buddy, if there's you know, if
there's a two sides to a debate, I mean, obviously
there's more than two sides, but like if on one
side you have the wealthiest people in the world and
on the other side you have people who say mean
things about you personally online, and you think that you know,
it's the first side that's the contrarian underdog. Yeah, something

(57:07):
is wrong with your brain, and that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
But this is, and this, I think is a weird
thing in our society that we just people trust the
rich and the media has got to a point where
they've just bred out the real cynicism because I swear,
like ten to fifteen years ago, you used to have
some tech journalism, Like I read a thing about Amazon
web services that Kevin Ross wrote and it was actually
pretty cynical about it. Really, yeah, it was actually pretty critical.

(57:30):
He then he made I feel bad for him because
this can't be in his fault. He basically said at
the end, Yeah, they'll never be profitable. No, no, no,
it gets worse at a month later, Amazon announced that
AWS is profitable for the first time. Just like Buddy
miss the bean.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
Come on, whoa, Yeah, maybe that's the origin story. Maybe
he was like, oh wow, I screwed that up.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
I guess I believe the origin story is actual social media.
I think I think he felt. I actually think a
lot of journalists think that they missed the boat on
social media. I have been in media relations since two
thousand and eight. I have read and this sounds insane, yeah,
but it's true. I think I've read just about everybody's
work since then within the tech media, at least, including Kevin's,

(58:11):
and he has always had a little bit of anxiety
that he missed social media. Nobody missed social media, not
a single fucking one since two thousand and eight. Everybody
was on Zuckerberg's zuck. He sucked him off at hardcore.
Sorry sorry, but nevertheless, they were on top of this,
they wrote about some social media was written about immediately.
If anything, I think the media was a little slow

(58:31):
to get on apps. Then they gone on hardcore. I
know the history of this shit. I have been taking
detailed notes. They sound crazy, but I think that there's
just there is this weird thing of like the powerful
would never lie to us. And then Prism came out,
and then Cambridge Analytic happened and people are like, maybe
Zuckerberg's bad, but he wouldn't lie to us. He would

(58:52):
and they're like, well they know things we don't know.
And that's actually another that's my favorite. AI think when
it's like the secret things they're working on, secret things,
secret things, sitting in the waiting in the wings, you'll
never believe what's coming. And it's just I actually think
it's just what's his name, Iliasuitskeva just goes to Bar's occasion.
He's like, you'll never guess when I said, you never get.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
A okay, okay, no, I I have a thing to
say about when like this is this is me just
being petty and making a point that other people have
made that yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
No.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
When he when he announced that he was you know,
putting together a team to you know, just go straight
for safe super intelligence. He meant to say when he
posted this on social media, that he was putting together
a crack team, but that's not what he wrote. What
he right, He wrote that he was putting together a
cracked team. Hmmm, crack ed, cracked, and like, yeah, actually

(59:48):
you know what, Yeah, I think that's true.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
I agree, yeah, exactly. I also think him and Mary
Moralty I can't. And so for the for the listeners, Illocitskava,
one of the co founders of OPE and I, raised
two billion dollars at a thirty billion dollar valuation. Mira
Mourati did a billion some amounts some bullshit. Neither of
these companies have told their investors how they will spend

(01:00:11):
the money, or what on or what they will build.
And you may think I'm being facetious. Mira Murati literally
said to investors, I will not tell you, and then
said I and has board rights where she can veto everyone,
I will be honest, go for it. Fuck yeah, I
think I think at this stage, if these people are
so fucking stupid that you're just like, I promise you

(01:00:33):
literally nothing. I won't give you you hogs a single
oinc You're not gonna get anything from me. Give me
money now, fuck yeah, go for it. But on the
other hand, I cannot wait for the investigation.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
I just hope there is one. Right. These people are
acting with impunity like and and also like again accountability
just for their words. Right. The most basic criticism of
the wealthy in media like this is to shift just
a little bit. Eric Schmidt right said about about a

(01:01:06):
year ago, shortly before the election, he said, we're never
going to meet our climate goals anyway, so we might
as well just burn as much carbon and use as
many resources as possible to get to AGI, and then
that will solve climate change for us, which is ridiculous
because we don't so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Yeah yeah, Like we have no responsibility for our actions
until we hand them off to someone else.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Right, So he said this, which is ridiculous for lots
of reasons, and echo stuff that Sam Altman has said, right,
It's it's ridiculous among other reasons, because like AGI is
not a thing, and also because we don't need like
we know what we need to do to solve global warming, right,
we know what we need to do to solve the
climate crisis is just a matter of actually getting everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
I don't need to do it, but may sam Oltman
said that they know what they need to do to
get to AGI, and then said a few months later
that agi wasn't a useful term.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Q D, Well, no, this is this is exactly what
I was about to say about right. He repeats this
claim about like just pushing as hard as we can
about a month after the last time he said it,
maybe two months. Only a few weeks ago he comes
out in the New York Times with this op ed saying, oh,
AGI is not really a thing and we shouldn't care

(01:02:18):
about it. It's like, buddy, you were saying just a
few weeks ago that this was gonna save the world
from the biggest emergency of our time, and now you're
saying it's not a thing. Do you think we're all stupid?
Are you that stupid? What the fuck is going on?

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
I can actually tell you. I think he thinks the
meteor is that stupid and will write and we'll publish anything.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
He says. I mean to see that the New York
Times published it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
I wasn't Yeah, I would be honest. That's the least
we've got fucking Ezra Klein being like, hey, geis the
fucking Ezra Ezra? What a peculiar fella, What a peculiar fella,
Ezbra Klein is? What's going on there? You ever run
into mister Klein.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
I've never met him directly, I know people who know him,
but now I think I think he just hung out
with too many tech billionaire as while he was living
in the Bay Area. He's this fucking mind poison. These
people are boring. Yeah, these people are bored.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
You sit down.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
They have amounts of money. And like, if you're if
you're someone who's never been cool and they have been cool,
and I've also never been cool, love it, don't I know?
But like, if you've never been cool, one of two
things happens to you as you grow up. Either you
desperately want to be cool and that can, you know,
go wrong in many different ways, like Musk and possibly

(01:03:34):
like Klein. I don't know, maybe like I'm willing to
believe that something else is going on with him. I
don't know. But or you become like us and you
stop giving a shit yeah, and you accept oh, I'm
just permanently uncool. Whatever, I'll make my way through life.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
And that's the thing. It's these people are just disconnected
from humanity. None of these people seem to have friends
or loved ones, because there's just if I did any
of this whack of through shit, I would get takes
from Casey or there or any number of people love
me just like, hey, man, are you okay? Sound insane? No,
Casey would definitely not be just. But hey, yeah, what
the fuck you you okay? That doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
What do you mean?

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
What do you mean a Dyson sphere? Do you know
what that is? A dice in sphere. It's just they
don't have friends, and I don't know if they want them.
I think it could require a certain level of vulnerability.
Have you talked twenty Have you met up with any
of them?

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
With the billionaires, no, I tried. There's a list at
the end of my book of all of the tech
billionaires I tried to interview and they all said no.
The only one who I successfully interviewed was like a
lower tier billionaire guy named jan to Lynn who's in
deep with the effective algist was Skype and Speaza. Yeah
yeah that's right, christ Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, can't hate

(01:04:47):
him for those are two pretty good ones.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
Yeah, exactly, though I will say Skype definitely one of
those inventions that I've never seen something just stop. Yeah, no,
Scott just got like no, just no, I mean trapped
in Amber. It was the same product for fifty oh yeah.
And the Microsoft are just like what Box are an
animal farm banged, it's at a glue factory with Skype.
We fucked this up well enough, It's just it's also

(01:05:09):
it's also sad. But this has been such a wonderful conversation.
Oh where can people find you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Well, I'm on blue Sky because I don't want to
be on a platform like Ext's filled with Nazis now,
so blue sky is the best place to find me.
I'm Adam Becker dot blue sky dot social, orgy dot social.
And yeah, I got a book, is the main thing. Yeah,
I got a book called More Everything Forever linked to

(01:05:35):
it in the notes. Yeah, it is available wherever fine
books are sold. And if you liked what I had
to say on this episode, I think you'll like the book.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
And if you like what I have to say on
this show, you're a sick puppy, you know where to
find me. Thank you so much for your time as ever,
I love you all. Thank you to beahet of course
here in New York City, here for producing this episode,
and of course the Madisowski, the wonderful producer at home.
I will catch you with them monologue in a few days.
Thank you so much, Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

(01:06:09):
The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T
T O S O W s ki dot com. You
can email me at easy at Better Offline dot com
or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast
links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend

(01:06:31):
you go to chat dot Where's youreed dot at to
visit the discord, and go to our slash Better Offline
to check out our reddit. Thank you so much for listening.
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For
more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia
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