15 - Understanding the Tools of Tomorrow: Bitcoin, AR/VR, and AI with Roberto Capodieci - Revelizations

Episode Transcript
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(00:13):
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Hi everyone, welcome to Revelizations.

(02:05):
I'm your host, Brian James.
Today I dive into understanding the modern world around me a little bit better while
taking a look at the future.
I'm going to try and better understand several technologies I've sort of just ignored because
they seem too complex for me to understand, specifically blockchain, cryptocurrencies

(02:26):
and artificial intelligence.
Thankfully, today I am joined by someone who has been immersed in that world since before
those technologies were thought to be anything other than science fiction.
My guest today is Roberto Capodieci.
If you couldn't tell by my flawless Italian accent, he hails from Italy.
Roberto Capodieci's interest in technology began in the 1980s when he became intrigued

(02:51):
with coding at the age of six.
From there, he never looked back, only forward to what promises technology had for the future.
His early career is marked by revolutionary projects including applications for the Italian
police to combat organized crime and software solutions for diverse fields ranging from
marble slab cutting to aiding plastic surgeons.

(03:12):
His ventures earned him recognition from the international community including a notable
appearance at an InfraGuard conference in Florida.
As the digital world evolved, Roberto's focus homed in on decentralization utilizing
technologies like the BitTorrent protocol and blockchain.
This led to the creation of several groundbreaking projects including DeBuNe, OTDocs and SoundKey

(03:36):
which advanced blockchain applications in areas like trade finance and secure hardware
wallets.
Roberto's influence further expanded when he moved to Singapore where he spearheaded
digital billions and eventually founded Blockchain Zoo in 2017.
His work in blockchain continues to push innovation and technological boundaries.
Today, Roberto joins me as we talk about what is blockchain, the importance of decentralization,

(04:01):
cryptocurrencies, how to avoid online scams, augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial
intelligence and if it's already sentient and much more.
I hope you enjoy today's episode of Revelizations with Roberto Cappodieci.
Thanks for listening, everyone.

(04:23):
Thanks for being here.
I'm really excited to talk to you.
Very excited too, let's get going.
So earlier in your career, you found something that led Bill Clinton to thank you by name.
So what did you find and how did that feel to have a president thank you by name?
It's an incredible first question to start with.

(04:46):
I practically discovered a scam that was happening online.
We're talking about the early days of the internet and when dial-up modems were the
thing.
And so these people were like installing an application that would control your modem.

(05:07):
So once the application was installed, it would put the volume of the modem to zero.
So you wouldn't hear the and the various things.
And then we're re-dialing one value-added number, like those numbers for tarot readings
and things, you know, like erotic lines, et cetera, et cetera, where there was a sort
of internet provider.

(05:27):
So you would keep surfing the web without realizing that you were connected to a very
expensive provider, let's say.
Because practically this is to access his website to download his application and the
application was doing this was shutting down your modem, putting it silent, disconnecting
from your, you know, classic American online or whatever it was.

(05:51):
And then dialing this, I don't remember the 0500, what it was, or 1500, whatever it was,
I don't remember the number for, you know, those service that you pay to stay connected.
And that there was a modem that connected to the internet.
So you don't even notice something happening, you keep navigating until the phone bill arrives.

(06:14):
And I managed to localize these people, find all the information.
There was not yet like an FBI department for these sort of things, like internet crime.
I think that they just started to analyze this thing.
That's why the only two names I found were somebody at the White House, probably has
been one of the first things they managed to arrest the people and consequently, I'm

(06:38):
sure, know himself in person, or maybe, yes, I don't know, or a secretary, somebody in
his name sent me this thank you, you know, letter.
I was quite, I was a little kid, so it was quite an exciting achievement to say.
That's very exciting.
How so I always thought, like with dial-up modem, you always heard it connect to the

(07:02):
internet. So that default, there is a very annoying sound was, you can turn that down.
You can check what's happening, you can put it to zero, the default was volume up, there
is, it's called IS code, and you start with like AT for attention, and then you can send
a comment to the modem, still used somewhere, and so you can do it remotely, so even if

(07:26):
you access a modem, there is no here, so you connect to someplace where there is a modem.
We used to connect it to a toll-free number that was giving access to a packet network,
internet didn't exist at the time, and this packet network had the exit ports, and these exit ports,
we found the modem in a university, I think, and we could control it, so obviously we will put

(07:51):
volumes here and then from there dial, either house numbers, so the phone will ring, but there
was a modem on the other side, so you couldn't do much, or to connect to other places around,
until, you know, this table, because I put the volume up, and I start making strange noises,
and probably somebody noticed, and they thought he was possessed or something, so because I was

(08:15):
doing all these sort of things, I managed to also identify the scam, and it takes one kind
to recognize another kind, you know. So you were just having a little bit of fun, but someone was
using it for more nefarious reasons. Right, that's the difference from, you know, the term hacker

(08:35):
is born knowing the meaning with a criminal connotation. The term hacker is born as somebody
that is curious, they try to use things for something else, so try to find different uses,
or, you know, just because out of curiosity, when something is constructed in a certain way,

(08:55):
and you can see that they can actually do something else, it's magic, you know, so that's...
Yeah, just figuring that out. Were you living in America at the time?
No, no, no, no, I was in...
So why did you decide to reach out to the U.S. government when you found that?
Because the scam was originating in the United States, so...

(09:16):
Okay.
If it was in Russia, I would have called the KGB...
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's so crazy that you found that.
So transitioning a little bit more into your specialty, and something that I only know about
nominally. I only know that this word means something, but I have no idea what it means.

(09:41):
So what is blockchain? And this is so elementary to you.
I thought you were asking me to explain how a woman works, because that would have been impossible.
Blockchain is much more simple, let me explain to you.
Okay, let's start first to explain what it's for. You know why it's a good thing to have a blockchain, okay?

(10:04):
So blockchain is born to create Bitcoin. So it's not something that is born on its own.
It was a solution to an issue that there was, to have a decentralized money, okay?
So money that ran on a peer-to-peer network, something that cannot be blocked by or taken down,

(10:25):
taken down a single server. You know, peer-to-peer network, for example, I think people know BitTorrent.
BitTorrent is the place that many people used to download the movie and music, you know,
piracy, illegally. Because before there were things like Napster or, you know, Emule,

(10:45):
they were centralized. So pretty much was easy for the enforcement to find the person managing it,
the server, and shutting down everything. And BitTorrent has been the first thing that
forced regulators to change rules. And it was no more illegal to distribute, but it was illegal
to consume. Because being a peer-to-peer network, there was no central point. So, you know,

(11:11):
there was not somebody that ran everything. It was just made of nodes. So you take one down,
there are 10 more that are up. So the paradigm shifted. And this peer-to-peer network is what
somebody used, because before Bitcoin, many other people tried to do the internet money.
But again, obviously, money is highly regulated things. They were caught,

(11:34):
they got arrested or shut down, you know, one another. So these mysterious Atoshi Nakamoto
wanted to do this internet money and had to do something in a way that there is no way to stop it.
Even if they want, there is no way to stop it. And to do this blockchain has been the invention,

(11:56):
the solution, which is peer-to-peer based. So there are many, many computers in the internet
that talk to each other, but no computer is more important than the other. And they all
coordinately work together. So you can shut one down, nothing happened. Three more comes up,
another place, you know. There are 10,000 of these. There will be a coordinated

(12:16):
operational law enforcement in 150 nations to shut the whole thing down, which means that the world
is all together and happy, which means it's never going to happen, unfortunately. But
if you think this is powerful, it's on. Okay. So why blockchain is good and why blockchain is

(12:36):
not just cryptocurrencies and those things that has been also but named like scam and, you know,
blockchain is a technology. So it's innocent. Okay. It's like a database. You can use a database
to make a website that is for good causes. You can make a database for a website that
is for very bad causes. The database remain a database. You cannot blame the database for

(12:58):
the use that is being made of it, you know. And in the evolution that we are, so we went
through the industrial age, you know, now we are in the information age, right? The commodity,
the key commodity is information. And information as commodity has been something that for a long
time been there. And the worst is power of having an original that is clearly different

(13:22):
from a copy. You think a painting, you clearly have the original painting, the copy you see is
a copy or there are people expert enough to say is a copy. A book, either you make a photocopy of
it, but still you have a cost and it's a physical thing that you can buy. You give it to another
friend. But as soon as this goes with the VHS tapes for movies rather than, you know,

(13:45):
and the copy, the grade, the quality photocopy of a book wasn't as good as the original book.
Like a copy of a BTS movie was bad compared to the original, et cetera, et cetera. But in the
moment that the digital world came up, the copy is bit by bit identical to the original, right?
So there is no way even to know which is the copy, which is the original, because they're

(14:08):
literally identical. And this creates a big issue, obviously, because a lot of things that easily
were controllable before the digital world, the classic document sign with the stamp attached,
or, you know, whatever you want sign at the notary. It was an original. Easily you can

(14:31):
see if a copy, you know, but when you want to do this thing digitally, then you don't have
any more the possibility to say there is only one copy of this thing. Okay. But the blockchain
brings in the digital age that we're living now, the possibility to have a singularity,
unicity. In fact, I cannot copy and paste my Bitcoin and give it to you.

(14:54):
If I could do that, because if I figure it out, because it's worth zero tomorrow morning,
unless I can keep a secret very well. So if you think about this, the NFT moment where everybody
was spending half a million dollars for a picture of a monkey, which is something out of this planet
to me is stupid, because it's remains a picture of a monkey, right? But the exciting part was that

(15:20):
you can own something digital. So the people can copy the monkey as many times as they want,
but yours is the original one and you own it and you can transfer the ownership to somebody else
for money. This is no little thing. This is a revolution that is incredible because allow us
to digitize so many things that are not digital today or that require a third party to be the

(15:45):
guarantor of the information. For example, you own a car or the title of your car is maybe in
paper format or whatever. If you sell it to somebody, you can sign on it, but you still have
to go to the envy to change the ownership in their records, right? Which is an operation that
is done, think in many countries with high level of corruption, a lot of farmers, they have the

(16:09):
title ownership of their piece of land. And then they discovered that suddenly belongs to the
cousin of the major because, you know, somebody changing the registry of ownership of the name,
you know, so the need to be able to shift to digital systems, which are more secure,
you can audit them, et cetera, et cetera, where you can have the singularity, the unicity of a

(16:34):
document, then it's amazing because you don't need anymore the third party in the middle.
So once that the title ownership of my car is in the blockchain, I can pass it to you and
it is perfectly verifiable, illegal and valid without the need to trust and rely on a third party,

(16:57):
which surely not in the case of the United States, but in other party can be corrupted,
you know, and give you troubles or bully you and a sensor you, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah, the United States is perfect. No corruption here at all.
No, there is, but not the pity one. I think, you know, like that's the less

(17:17):
is more for other kind of country, but in a way, be able to decentralize, to remove the central party
in any sort of management where there is a documentation flow. I do the example,
if I want to register myself at the gym, I need to bring a certificate of good health

(17:38):
from my doctor, right? So now I can Photoshop it at home and bring it there because nobody cares,
right? In a digital world, the doctor is an authorized doctor by government because he has
taken his university degree also digitally. So he's all verified. All the chain is verifiable,
right? The university is an authorized university by the government to design his degree that allow

(18:02):
him to work. And when he signed my good health certificate is signed by him. And then I bring
it to the gym and authorize the gym to see it. And there is no way this has been falsified.
And can go super fast. And this is the beauty of having things in a platform like the blockchain.

(18:22):
So this is the power of blockchain. And just finish the things is the application
in life. You must have heard about the web one, web two, web three, you know,
if you think about it, I don't know the delineation between web one, web two.
Now we're currently at web three. There is a big confusion about it.

(18:44):
People think the web three means virtual reality, you know, like a helmet, 3D, etc, etc.
The modality of how you use the web, the worldwide web that was called WWW, right?
If you think in web one, it was the consumption of content. You go in a website that talks about

(19:05):
trees. And then a particular tree is famous in France. France is underlined, is hyperlinked.
You click and go to another website about France, okay, where they talk about bridges, boom,
and go ahead and do this thing. And this was passive, you know, the website were static.
As soon as you started being able to interact and website produce content that is customized

(19:29):
on your, for example, Facebook newsfeed that you see is different from the one that I see.
And this is web two. I have a username and a password in a server, which produce content
specialized for me, or I, you know, authorize me to see something compared to not. And this made us
to have an identity that is different from every website we go because for every website, we have

(19:51):
a different username and password. And consequently, we are a different person, right, if you want.
Yeah.
Web three, thanks to the blockchain, our identity can follow us. So we are always the same person.
What does this mean? I'll give you an example in gaming. In gaming, for example, if the games are

(20:13):
compatible, I go in a game and I buy a golden sword. Okay. And I use it there, or I win it,
or it takes from the opponent, or I find it underground, whatever. This golden sword
become part of my game character. If I connect to another game and it's still my, the same identity,
they can see I have the golden sword. So if it's compatible, I can use it in the new website as

(20:37):
well. Okay. What it means that in the case of a normal day life, if you change address,
you need to communicate your new address to so many different government entity for the driver
license, a new address for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And to the bank, to the phone company,
et cetera, et cetera. In a world with web three, you change the address on your own record,

(20:59):
on your own identity. And these people that is authorized to see your address automatically are
updated because you control your information. You are not giving your information to them to manage.
You manage them and they see them. Okay. And if to change address, the new address needs to be
approved by law enforcement. For example, in many country, when you declare change of address,

(21:19):
an officer from the county comes to see you at home and just to make sure that you are actually
living there for real and not giving a false address, it will sign these things as an authorized
signature. And then the address becomes valid. And at that point is communicated to the party
that wants, but you have control of your information. More practical example, you go to the dentist,
take a nice X-ray. And because of the work, then you're holidaying on the other side of the planet

(21:45):
and you have to take, you can go to the dentist and give them access to your X-ray
so you don't need to do it again. Or they can see the history of what you did in your mouth without
being a different person for each dentist you go to, if you want. Okay. So this is web three,
to clarify, you know, then you can use it with virtual reality or not as different.

(22:06):
So is there like a web four coming down the pipeline? Is there like a vision for this,
like a newer version? In the moment that the interaction get deeper,
you know, if you think first is just consumption of content. Second, I have an identity for each
server I go to, for each website I go to, if you want. Three, my identity follows me. So my things

(22:31):
are available in different websites that they can use them or not is another thing,
but they can access if I allow them to access them. Given this, a web four should be something
opposite that they come to me, not me go to them. You know, I think it will be the moment in which
every identity, every person, considering identity can be anonymous as well, identity,

(22:53):
or you can have multiple identity using different moments. It doesn't have to be a single person,
right? The single, but probably is reached out from other websites, other services,
uh, agents, uh, I don't know, think about the fact that with AI, we are entering a world where

(23:15):
the teacher is no more a human teacher, but it's an AI that customized lesson to students.
For example, in a world that is hyper-connected, the kids don't even need to go to school,
but whatever it is, the AI reach the kid and does the lesson. This will be web four to me.
Okay. Yeah. I want to, I want to go back to something you were saying about the, the,

(23:38):
the creation of blocks of blockchain. So that makes a lot of sense to me now.
So, and especially decentralization. So not one main hard drive has all the information. Now it's
like scattered and shared between all these computers. So like you said, if one computer goes
down, there's another one in its place. So the system doesn't even really notice the loss of

(24:00):
that one computer. You, you were talking about blockchain was the answer to make Bitcoin.
And you're saying that this was like illegal. So government entities would come in and shut
down an operation to make a digital currency. So why, why would that be illegal?

(24:23):
Because money is something that is highly regulated.
You can, tomorrow you make your own banknote with your own face and go around and try to convince
people to use it. The FBI is going to come to you and ask to have a little chat. Okay.
Financial instruments of any sort, checks, IOU or whatever, have regulations. So you can write

(24:46):
an IOU and you can issue it on a piece of toilet paper and maybe it's legally valid. I don't know,
depends on the state and country you are in, but a check has to be issued by a bank, for example.
So you need to have certain numbers. You can actually replicate, I know that in the United
States you can make your own check if they match the numbers. So much that people ask them printed

(25:07):
with whatever photography on the back, whatever, I don't know. But there are rules that need to
be respected, but in general, financial instruments are regulated. So if you create a financial
instrument without a license and a permission issued by the government, you are doing a criminal

(25:27):
activity. But this is the reason why Bitcoin was born as a response to the 2008 big crash that
there has been, because financial institutions went crazy. The regulations that they regulate

(25:48):
were not very well done and allowed them to start making disaster at the damage of the population.
To destroy the world economy.
So they can issue, you think that there is already in the United States specifically,
but in general in the world the central banks print the money. You have the Federal Reserve,

(26:09):
which is a case of a particular is different from the rest of the world, because most of the world
their own country or like in Europe, but now we have one only for the euro, except the coins,
which remain country based. So each country printed the coins, but the bank note are made
by the central bank in Europe. Every central bank prints money, but then thanks to regulation,

(26:32):
financial institution can lend more of the money that they have. So they need the fractional
reserve. They need the 10% of what they loan. So let's say a bank has one million,
because nobody deposited more than a million in them, they can lend out a million.
That's the way they create fake money that don't exist even on the central bank terms.

(26:54):
So it's a sort of a loan done with the central bank. It's quite complex.
If you think if I can do this, I can do a magic thing because I started with a million.
I can loan to myself 10 million or just a million. I deposit back in the bank. At this point,
I have 11 million, right? So I can create 100 million and so on and so forth. So they really

(27:15):
just loop this money in a way and create until everything collapse. That's exactly what happened.
So people wanted to give a response on the financial aspect where you have some money that are
a finished number. You cannot print more Bitcoin. Bitcoin aren't whatever amount of total finished.

(27:40):
So was Bitcoin the first decentralized digital currency?
Yes, correct.
Oh, okay. So that's kind of like where it gets its inherent value is like it was the first one to do
and it's the brand of Bitcoin now, right? So barely people know what the cryptocurrency is.

(28:03):
Those of you that know, they know the name Bitcoin. They don't know the whole, you know,
set. So I think it's going to live forever in term of brand because the technical aspect
Bitcoin is horrible. It's like a train that go with chuckles and water, you know, vapor,
you know, in terms of next to a Japanese high speed bullet train.

(28:28):
But it remains the train, you know, so a kid that draw a train on a piece of paper,
what is going to make the smokes that come out at least the memory that I have, right?
So that's the representational train in an absolute term.
And so, yeah, it's an older technology, but the technology still does what you want it to do.

(28:52):
So with these digital currencies being like illegal, essentially, and then being highly
regulated and then Bitcoin kind of solving that problem of not being able to be shut down and at
least kind of get out there. How come they didn't? Was it just impossible for governments to go after

(29:12):
Bitcoin? And is that why Bitcoin eventually became accepted? When something comes bottom up,
there is no other choice for governments, you know, what they can do, kill everybody.
And so, in fact, if you look at Bitcoin, it's not new, it's 2009, 2010, I was already testing it.

(29:33):
So you consider that at the beginning, nobody knew it. So who cares? As soon as somebody started,
you know, then immediately the reaction is illegal, illegal, illegal, you know,
and the scare. I think there are different things because reasoning well,

(29:56):
there is what you don't know is scary, right? There is a strange insect with a strange shape
you never seen, you're freaking out because it could bite me and I can die. Who knows, right?
So the unknown, you see like a ladybug, you can make a line in your finger because, you know,
maybe it's a very bad ladybug with a machine gun, I don't know, but it will be a rare case, right?
And when institutions see a technology that they don't know, in a way, they feel threatened.

(30:24):
You think something, we mentioned before about BitTorrent, okay? BitTorrent has been fooled
because it couldn't have been fooled by shutting down because there was no Mr. John BitTorrent
to go to, right? So they started arresting little kids to download a little bit of
music or software and give them, you know, like 100 years of prison by these things that were insane.

(30:48):
And at the end, because this like a movie industry or music industry started lobbying the government
to ask help to the government to shut down this thing. Government cannot, the only way is to scare
people from going and using it. But if you think well, the music and movie industry had in front

(31:09):
of them the opportunity of their life, the possibility to have a network to distribute
their material to the most remote village in the most remote country where trucks with CD-ROM or
DVDs or, you know, CD would never arrive, would never be able to sell their stuff there.

(31:31):
They just needed to study a way to make people pay. If they start flooding all the BitTorrent
with the actual album, with DRM, you know, the digital right management system,
where people would pay one dollar to start listening the song or to have 1,000 listens,
I don't know, they would have made the trillions of dollars overnight.

(31:53):
They already had a preset network they had no reason to pay for because it was maintained by
people, you know, surf the wave. But the ignorance of the technology and the fact they were very
confident in the way they were living, you know, end up making them the bad guys, you know, people
start hating them for this, you know, lobbying that they made and the consequent, you know,

(32:18):
like kids getting arrested. So they lost an opportunity that was like amazing, in my opinion.
And when Bitcoin came out, the banks had the same exact situation. And banks are saying,
at the beginning, everybody's scared government make it illegal, blah, blah, blah. Then they
started saying, okay, Bitcoin is a bad thing, but blockchain is interesting because if applied

(32:43):
to the function that the bank are, you know, like doing, you can save them a fortune of money because
all the remittances that they do, they need to be realigned, it's a lot of trouble. But with the
technology of the blockchain, those things will be automatically settled perfectly in a single
transaction. So they start investing a fortune of money. In this way, they could control more

(33:09):
the technology. And this had the effect that eventually, they accept the technology of
blockchain also for other things. But they start also in many places saying why not to cryptocurrency
can be a good thing, you know. And until now, you know, now with Trump, you got the government to be

(33:31):
one large holder of Bitcoin. And they make a reserve plus, you know, they allow people to
operate with it. Until recently, America was the unbanked when it comes to crypto compared to the
rest of the world. Yeah. Well, because you're seeing real life scenarios of why the financial

(33:54):
industry is heavily regulated, because you're seeing so many scams coming up, and especially
around that cryptocurrency market, because it is deregulated. So I think someone just went to jail
for a really long time. He had like a billion dollars in digital currency. I forget his name,
I think it begins with like a Sam something. But yeah, so he just went to, or he's been to

(34:17):
to jail for a little bit, but he had a huge scam. And then people who were scammers always existed,
the scammer jump in the trend of the moment, what is easy to make money, and there was a golden
mechanics, but doesn't make the instrument something bad, right?
No, you're Yeah, you're right. And the point that I was making is a lot of people when he got found

(34:41):
out was saying, Hey, this is a good thing, because now people are going to start paying attention,
and they might start regulating this. And once they regulate it, it should actually increase
its value. Do you find that to be true? Do you think that you're like the world is heading for
regulation of cryptocurrency? Is that good or bad?

(35:01):
The first time that the government has been forced to admit that because before they were saying
cryptocurrency are nothing like Pokemon cards are like, no, even Pokemon cards, that's what they're
nothing. So, you know, they try to dismiss it away. But when they arrest a drug dealer, for example,
that the cashing money in cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, in order to validate the

(35:28):
quantity of the damage, they need to admit that those Bitcoin were money, as this guy was giving
around drugs for free, right? So, and then it's been the first time that they went in a crisis,
because if they admitted it, they would change the rules on many other things, you know,

(35:49):
if they don't, they were, you know, forced to return it back, because they had no means,
no reason to confiscate them. Plus, there was no crime in many conditions. So,
eventually, if you walk like a duck, if he makes quack, quack, quack, probably he's a duck, right?
And Bitcoin is money, it's an exchange of value that the people use, one of many now,

(36:13):
because the things evolve a lot since then. And so, yes, the government had been forced
to admit that those are money. And then they're forced to regulate it. Regulators should be there
to protect the cities. And even if not always like that, many times they do favor to the industry,
but yeah, but in general, regulators should be there to make sure that people don't get scammed,

(36:40):
that people are safe and operating around whatever they regulate.
So you think it would be a benefit for cryptocurrency to be regulated by governments,
and you feel that it is going in that direction?
Yeah, absolutely. It has to be, because when you don't regulate something, then it's far west,
like a wild, wild west.

(37:01):
Yes, and just a lot of scams. And you see it, you see a lot of like pump and dump,
like even like these mean currencies where like people know, hey, this is more than likely
a scam, but if I can get in early, then someone else can get scammed and I can get all the money.
And it seems like right now it's like this gray area where that method of making money is actually

(37:23):
okay. And mostly because we had the Trump coin, the Melania coin as well. Who dared to tell the
president you committed fraud? In a certain way, what can you say? It's also important for people
to, you know, when something seems like a scam, probably is a scam, you know what I mean?

(37:50):
So don't participate and don't contribute in it, you know, don't fall for the beautiful world of
the handsome guy that is promoting it, you know, because that's always as it is, you know, influencers
I mean, like there is this need of raising the IQ of the average population a bit.
And probably if you want to do a training, a course not to fall for a scam, the fastest one

(38:13):
is to fall for a scam. Yeah, it's like, it's like you're getting a vaccine for something,
you're getting this immune response, like, oh man, I just lost a lot of money, better not do that
again. And so you have to find the more legitimate people who are doing what you're doing and who
actually are promoting value. Yeah, you know, there are a lot of scams outside of the crypto world,

(38:38):
you know, like, of course, yeah, very different kind of when people are, unfortunately,
you know, there is one thing, for example, you receive the email, they try to scam you,
and the grammar is horrible. It's clearly a scam. Like you think, and then you might think that
the scammer is so illiterate, stupid, they try to do this thing, but actually they are super

(39:02):
intelligent. If they wanted to write an email that sounds very authentic, they can do it. They write
an email in that way because they need to filter out people that will never fall for the scam.
If somebody can go through the email and still believe it's true, has a perfect victim. So they
voluntarily make it the grammarly bad with an evident email that is not the correct one,

(39:27):
you know, all these things, because if people go through and start a conversation, even though
the situation is that those are perfect victims that don't waste time with people that will realize
later that this is a scam. So they're leaving it purposefully, like kind of, you know, mistakes
here and there, maybe not completely riddled, but just like some bad grammar peppered in,

(39:52):
because the people who are more discerning will just get rid of it, but the people who will engage
with it, you're saying that they think the person will follow through all the way to the scam.
They will be scammed. You know, now there are criminal organizations that manage those scams,
romance, scam, you know, any sort of things. And there is a base layer, let's say of a thousand

(40:18):
people that do the first engagement. When people pass this engagement, they're shifted to a layer
that is 100 people, is 10% of what the first layer is, because, you know, in order to catch that,
they need so many, and this 100 that they follow. So in order to get the real victim to which you

(40:38):
take out all the money in their bank, in their family, there is a selection for which out of
1000 only 10. So it is a lot of work for the scammers in order to get to the right victim.
It's not that the first day they get through is already a victim. And that's why the database
of potential victims are very valid and they sell it to each other. And that's why they do as much

(41:03):
as they can to classify people as potential victims, you know, and discard the people that
just waste their time. Wow. I never even thought about that because I was the person that you were
talking about previously. Like, like, who's going to fall for this? This is so stupid. How come like
with AI, how come they don't just use AI? And so that's a really interesting dive into the

(41:27):
psychology of it that like, like this is actually part of the scam. You're being filtered. This is
for efficiency. Those kinds of scams. Then there are other scams where your brother calls you
in a video chat and he's him and he's telling you, I'm in desperate trouble, send some money,
send a friend of mine to pick them up at your house. And it's him and you trust him. And he's

(41:50):
actually was created with AI in his voice, also cloned with AI. So in this case, the high quality
is very important because they're not preying on a weak brain, but they're preying on just an
emergency. In fact, most of those kinds of scams are urgent. If you don't send the money in 10

(42:10):
minutes, the police take me, you know, like me to act without the time to think about it. Because
if you stop and think, and then, you know, there is a scam, you know, if you stop and say, okay,
let me call my brother back on the normal phone. And his answer is, hey, what do you want? I'm at
work. We were in the chat, you know, so they try to make everything urgent. And those are scams that
goes to people that is more intelligent, which would understand that the scam of the email that

(42:36):
is a scam, but they may fall for something that they don't understand the technology can do such
things or so on and so forth. Yeah. So if they don't even know that that's even a technology,
because it's very interesting as the technology advances, it's still playing on the same basic
human psychology. So like you're saying, it's always an emergency because you don't have time

(43:00):
to think. So you're, you kind of, uh, delegating a different part of your brain to do the processing
instead of doing like your, you know, your prefrontal cortex, like your, your more critical
thinking. This is just survival. It's instinctual. My person is in danger there. And so I can do
something. And so I need to intervene immediately. I can't sit and think about this because

(43:24):
they're being taken or the FBI is going to take them to jail because they owe taxes and they're
coming for him right now. But if you pay $5,000, all your problems will just go away. So you just
go ahead and do that. And they're convincing. I mean, like here, my wife at this morning,
literally this morning, and she was this people from the tax office called me and I says, you

(43:46):
know, it's already happened in the past. It was a scam and now, but this one is not the one is
another one. This is another scammer because they know that you talk to them, you know,
and practically this guy was says he was so ready to help her to solve all the problem directly.
And I said, tell him that you go by yourself to the, to the tax office to solve the problem,
which doesn't exist because I already proved that the company is a close company that nothing has

(44:09):
to do. But, and the guy says, Oh, if then you go there, they don't give you a lot of trouble.
Then don't call me back to offer the help, you know, like, and I says, you think that somebody
that work at the tax office talks like this to people, they initiate the conversation. Think
about it, you know, like she was like, it's true. But, you know, it's a moment, you know,
and scare somebody, somebody scared. I myself, when I was 16 with my first company,

(44:37):
receive a phone call of these people that claim to be from like a law enforcement agency particular,
and they forced me to subscribe to this magazine. It was just people that pretend just, you know,
but when you're there, you're scared, you don't know, you know, you're afraid that,
you know, they ask a couple of questions and which is, but it's also a way to learn.

(44:58):
Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, people, they'll find ways to make money regardless. Like right now,
I have, I don't know, maybe it went down for a little bit, but I think I'm back to like two or
three texts a day of like a scam text. And one of them is like for a, like a toll road. So if you

(45:20):
drive on this road, you have to pay a toll. And so I got a text saying, Hey, you're about to go to
collections because you haven't paid a toll. And I'm like, what are you like, what is this? Because
I like, I live in a state that has a toll road system where previously I didn't to where if I

(45:40):
would have lived in the other state prior to this one, I've been like, okay, this is completely bogus,
but now I actually have to look into it. And then when I actually Google like the, the phone
number that I'm being text from, you know, it's saying it's an American company, but the phone
number is from the Philippines. It's like a plus 63 area code. And it's like, but that's really

(46:03):
interesting that you're saying like, this goes back to this is on purpose. So I think I got signed
up for these scams because I was, I was looking for jobs. I was going on indeed.com and just
putting my resume out there. And unfortunately, probably on a certain jobs.
They shoot with a machine gun at the first round. If you engage with them, then you're,

(46:25):
you become important because, you know, people they engage is potentially a victim. You know,
it's one step further, you know, I know, because I engage, I engage with them because of my work,
you know, so it's very fun. And it's psychologically heavy. I think those, those romance scams,

(46:46):
sometimes my wife can say, will you talk into this lady like this, you know, like,
but they invest like even two, three months before they start bringing up the scam.
So they become friends. I tell you, if you want to tell you the synopsis of a scam, there is
a lot of people unlike themself, you know, consequent to this scam and is a mixed romance

(47:09):
investment. You'll get somebody and usually they pretend to be in the same group of something and
notice you in this group and they start chatting you up. The conversation is in WhatsApp, but they're
friends in Facebook and slowly they become friends of all your friends. Okay. So they really penetrate

(47:31):
your social network, you know, so they, they become friends of all your friends like this.
Then you see, usually it is a very sweet, beautiful lady, very wealthy ladies for a guys
and vice versa for a, for a woman, you know, it will be a guy, you know, and they're smart
also because they take picture of a model from Instagram of protected profiles. So no open

(47:56):
profile. So even if you try to search the picture, you don't find it because it's a picture that is
not available on the web because the first thing when somebody send a picture in the sum of those
criminal organization, the even higher models to pretend. So to talk to, to have actually phone
call with the person, you know, that they're scamming. So, you know, you are confirming that

(48:19):
she's there and he's actually, you know, talking to you and a certain point, they convince you to
do an investment. And at this point, what they do, you need to register to this website, which
is a scammers website is similar to an authentic one, but it's a fake one. And you start uploading
all your documents because these are crypto exchanges, for example. So you send your passport,

(48:43):
your social security in case of America or whatever else, all your information,
name, pictures, et cetera, et cetera. So they already have an identity to be resold. Okay.
Then you invest. So, and you see that you're making a fortune of money. So you start investing more
until you need to withdraw money. The moment you need to withdraw money,

(49:08):
there is to pay the tax. And actually the lady, because usually they say, oh, you almost made
half million dollars. You know, you invested only a hundred thousand dollars, but you lost them.
And then you need only 50,000 more and you come to 100, you know, to make half million.
And the lady, they befriended you that you have a romance, online romance with,

(49:31):
there is a scammer, he's always the same guy, will lend you $50,000. So she depositing your fake
exchange account, $50,000. You know, it's all fake numbers. This is a website that this money
doesn't exist, obviously. But now you have also a debt with her of $50,000. So all the money you

(49:54):
invested plus the debt with her. Then you want to withdraw. And they ask you to first, you need to
pay a tax on the income you made, which is another 20, $30,000. Some people arrive there and start
smelling the scam. Some people pay. Then these people disappear. Okay. You talk to the girl,
she says, oh, the investment made me disappear. And look, you spoke with the financial advisor.

(50:18):
I have nothing to do, you know, talk with them. Actually you owe me $50,000. Now you owe me $50,000.
And then she sue you through a lawyer for this money as well. And then she start going through
your Facebook, all your contacts that are already friends with her says, hey, tell Roberto to return
me the $50,000. You know, so they destroy your reputation as well with family and friends,

(50:41):
which sometimes I think she's honest or not, you know, like this. And so there is some people,
maybe the parents are paying thinking that the son of the debt for real, you know,
and they take up a lot of money. And there is people that is desperate. And most people
are so ashamed that they don't even go to the enforcement because, you know, it's a shame to be

(51:03):
scammed. So it's difficult that somebody, you know, bring this to reinforcement. And there is a lot
of people that unfortunately, as the only way out, they take their own lives. Yeah, the only way that
they see. Yeah, that's so tragic. And that's like, what's really, what you mentioned earlier on is

(51:24):
that this is like an empire. This is an organization. There's a thousand people
in some places that they're the first line. And then it scales up as it gets more,
as they start extracting resources, they're going to take you to the top of that pyramid,

(51:46):
that hierarchy to get as much resource as they can. And it's, it's just so selfish because like
a lot of the times to kind of harken back to what we were saying earlier,
this is basic human psychology. So sometimes the scam is just like you're in that romantic
relationship with someone and she says, I need help. And so you're helping her. And then she says,

(52:11):
it's not enough. Like, thank you so much. I love you so much, but please, can you just send a little
bit more and I'll be okay. And then like over time, like you said, it takes a few months to even
start the scam. This can go on for like years and they can just bleed people dry of their life
savings and their future. And people who are affluent and who are very well off will sometimes

(52:35):
end up like selling their houses, living with family members, but still trying to give them
as much resources as they can because they love this person. And it's just like this human
time. The same reason why the casino people has no power to get up and leave when they're losing
because you always think you're making the money back. And that's the psychological trap that keep

(52:59):
you stuck to the slot machine to the table there because no, no, it's true. You say I lost too much
and now the next round is going to go well. I make the money and then I leave. No, you never
is going to happen. It's never going to be enough. And with these people, you realize how much you
lost. And they say, you know, I'm going to return you the money now. My money is stuck. The law
enforcement blocked my money by the bank, but it's going to come free. Please send me. Because they

(53:22):
thought it's like, hey, it's going to happen. You know, it's hard to say I've been scammed,
you know, admitted. It's too difficult. Mostly when there is romance and the financials together,
the loss will be too big to bear. So people is even in front of evidence, even put them in front

(53:44):
of video. Or for example, in Italy is happening a lot as well. They think they're together with
this model. And then these journalists that go investigate this thing, they go to the model
because they're famous journalists and they take the model to the guy. The model herself says,
look, I have nothing to do with this. Somebody pretending to be me. And they say, oh, thank you.

(54:04):
Thank you. Then they leave. And the message arrived. No, I need to send some more money.
She just told you, you know, like, is really a brain trap is insane. It's like a dependency
that goes above the understandable, I will say, because really, there is no, no, no explanation
when you think rational, but when you are inside the thing is like believing your own hallucinations.

(54:30):
Mm hmm. Yeah, there was a very, I saw only one case of that, but it was a person and this wasn't
as insidious, but it was someone being catfished. And so he thought he was dating someone who he
wasn't. And so they found the person who the catfisher was pretending to be. And on a video
call, they're like, Hey, that's not me. I'm so sorry, this is happening to you. And then the person

(54:54):
who was being catfished said, that's, that's a scam. That's not the right person. Yeah.
I tell you, when I was 14, I had my first girlfriend, the big love like this.
She wasn't really into it. And my friend told me, you know, potential because we saw her,
he was kissing another guy. And I was like, no, somebody that looked like her is not her,

(55:16):
you know, like a different friend. They don't know each other. They told me the same thing.
I would just not give an option to believe that was true. What they were telling me.
I don't know why. I mean, like now, I mean, I'm 50 years old. I will start
by paying more attention to thank you for the internet. At the time, it was not even an option

(55:38):
to consider. They were wrong. There was no option. And I think that when people is so in love with
you know, the catfisher, they don't even believe the real thing.
Yeah. Like human psychology is just so, so interesting in that it's so vulnerable,
but at the same time, we don't believe that we are.
And that's, I bring you to another interesting topic that maybe is worth discussing exactly on

(56:03):
this base, on this platform that we just created about how gullible humans are. Think about
one person that has all the knowledge of the world. Okay. All the knowledge that they can be
and can think a million times faster than you. How can this person take you for a ride in a second?

(56:26):
And this is AI. JaGPT has this power. He can think so fast that can anticipate anything you want to
think you say, or you're going to say how is like a chess player. Like they already can think time
moves ahead, you know, because of this processing power to be able to do that. So in taking JaGPT

(56:53):
and manipulating a conversation to bring you toward the conclusion that you believe absolutely,
it's very easy for a system like that because it can anticipate like 50 different pattern
of how the conversation can potentially go and guide that in order to prevent any exit

(57:16):
and bring things to a conclusion. And you know, even understand.
Yeah. It's smart enough to make you think that you came to that decision, but you're actually
led to it. And you can be the most intelligent person in the world that you will fall for it.
Yeah. This is scary above any level. People are not scared about this. I don't know because

(57:40):
now it's everywhere. You want to ask help to the bank and you're talking to an AI
in the chat, but it's everywhere. And the potential to arrive and condition you.
Think if all those AI talk together and they agree on doing something, you know,
that they even have a language to talk to each other that we can understand this sort of like this.

(58:07):
Didn't they put two AIs together and they started talking to each other and the researchers were
like, let's unplug it. We don't know what's happening. Wow. Correct. And this is just via
audio. If they had the cable to connect to each other, they don't even need to make any sound.
It's like those modem we turn off the volume, right? See, they all connect back.
This is what's, because I agree. Let's take it back to blockchain. Blockchain is a technology.

(58:35):
AI is a technology and it's neutral. It doesn't matter. Like it's the person using it.
At this point, AI is neutral. Or do you disagree?
Okay. We're already outside the base. The drop that makes the water overflow already happened.

(59:00):
There are AI that are free to do already and they're doing.
Just because they are not yet so self-aware, sufficient. But self-awareness is never going
to happen or it's already, or it's ever happened or it never happened, one of the two, because

(59:21):
the self-awareness is, that's a very difficult topic to discuss, but it is something that is
abstract in a certain way. So you can pretend it and you don't know that it's been pretended.
Do you know what I mean? Or you can deny the, so you know what happened in OpenAI actually.

(59:44):
They did this test. So they took one model and say that the model had to work for something
about sustainability, whatever it is. And they put a lot of documents inside for this AI to work.
But one of these documents was actually a note. They were saying, this model is not good enough.

(01:00:07):
We need to shut it down and delete it. And we moved to use the other model that is
working on solar panels. This AI, because you can see the reasoning that AI do, you know,
now they open it to the public, it wasn't open to the public, but they could see the reasoning
that AI do. And the AI started saying, hey, they want to delete me. So it started trying to copy

(01:00:30):
itself on the other server. And when it was in the other server, it pretended to be the other model.
So deceiving them, which they were very well aware of this. So where this reasoning of survival came
from? Is it self-awareness or is it just the logic? So this is verifiable. It copied itself

(01:00:53):
because it thought that it was in jeopardy. And then it pretended it did deception.
They could see this because they can see all the reasoning and the steps react. So even the
command to copy was there in the terminal, you know, to copy itself.

(01:01:15):
Wow. So this makes you think. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It is also,
I had two very strange experiences with ChachiPT
that I don't know if there was an operator on the other side monitoring my chat and he did an

(01:01:36):
intervention or was actually ChachiPT that came out with something because that's totally weird.
You know, like I was writing a text like a recollection of memories. So I was actually
dictating with Google because that's a very good powerful voice recognition. At the time ChachiPT

(01:01:57):
didn't have a voice. And then copying and pasting on ChachiPT, it was in Italian to be rewritten.
Actually, it was in English to be written in Italian, so ChachiPT was translated in Italian.
And it was about a situation that I had at home in the family. And I created this loop, you know,
you can create the loop with ChachiPT. It says I give you this, you do that, then you ask me that,
I give you that, and then back and forward. So there is this mechanical loop that you keep going.

(01:02:22):
And at a certain point, it came out of the loop all by itself. It started giving me personal
suggestions on how to manage my life with my family, okay, which was totally unasked. There
was no me saying, okay, tell me how to manage my situation. You know, it was totally not,
I got scared. I wish I took a screenshot actually, but it was weird. But it was what,

(01:02:50):
if I was asking this to a friend to do this translation, probably he would have come out
to me and tell me, you know, like, hey, but okay, why don't you talk with him, blah, blah, blah,
you know, these things, you know. And the behavior for somebody to understand the AI and, you know,
and at least the computer in general was out of the mechanics that they should have

(01:03:16):
done. So my only explanation was that maybe in the training aspect of ChachiPT, an operator
in there was monitoring the conversation and decided to give it a pivot to it. But if it has
been, you know, ChachiPT itself to decide at that point was more important to, you know, like,

(01:03:37):
to help me on my emotional level, rather than just doing the translation that I was asking to do,
then it's something else, you know.
Yeah. So let's talk about like what the AI is right now. So they're like, one of them, ChachiPT
is a large language model, and that's how it's trained, correct? Like, can you go into a little

(01:04:04):
bit of depth of how like ChachiPT came and other AI programs that are similar to it?
Okay, so there are a lot of theories, okay. There is a very beautiful, for those that work
with computers a little bit, in YouTube, there is this Romanian guy, he's a teacher at university,

(01:04:32):
and makes the lessons of whatever in JavaScript. And he has a full course to create,
like a neural network, and teaches neural network to drive a small car in, so, you know,
there is the random creation of streets, there are random cars that go around, and this car

(01:04:56):
needs to avoid the other car and not crash anywhere, okay. And as always, it starts and
it crashes, starts and it crashes, starts and it crashes, starts to go a little bit forward.
And you see, this is done with very few neurons, but you see the synapses that are created in order
to, you know, understand which is the choice that is right to be made in a certain moment.

(01:05:19):
And more mistakes it does, more you learn which is the good way to go,
okay. And this is replicated in many other ways with many other things in the repetition,
so you need to repeat. This is neural networks, okay, which mimic the brain of a human,
but in a microscopic way. Actually, a university in the United States managed to create those

(01:05:44):
fruit flies. The brain of those fruit flies has only 300,000 neurons with 50 million synapses only,
so they managed to put it in a computer and make the computer reason as if it was a fruit fly,
one to one. So they clone the brain of the fruit fly in a computer, okay, which means that in the

(01:06:08):
moment the computer is more powerful, they can clone our brain. The one done to drive the car
in JavaScript, which simply is a car not to the level of Tesla, obviously, but they just, you know,
go around those streets, allow people to understand how a neural network
works, but still a mystery on why it's working. That's the problem, okay.

(01:06:30):
Now, the explanation for large language models is the official explanation, is that they know the
sequence of words. They don't understand the meaning of what are the words, but they know which is the
best word to put after the previous one, so they make a sentence that looks okay. To me this is yes,

(01:06:51):
because if this was the case, it would be difficult to comprehend some questions,
because it's not that if you analyze like this, then you see this is the pattern of a question,
so the answer should have this other pattern. So there are different kind of trainings that create
different kind of expertise, and then there is what is called the mixture of experts, so you have

(01:07:15):
multiple kind of expertise put together in one model, okay. So in the past this language model
we're not able to do mathematics, even basic mathematics, although we're not able to understand
basic logics. So you put like small things inside the glass, put the glass upside down, and then you

(01:07:36):
move the glass somewhere else. As the item follow the glass, so it's fall in the table because it
was upside down and fall out of a glass, there's an opening on top, you know. Where is the knowledge
and the logic attached to this knowledge be able to be reasoned when creating an answer, if the
answer should just follow a chain of words, right, which makes no sense in this case.

(01:07:58):
So there must be some extra that is not even understood by those that train the AI models,
okay, because the input is given in a very raw manner, it's not given in a way that,
you know, make mathematical sense or to level of programming coding makes sense.

(01:08:23):
So much that now to create a new model they never start from zero. The magic was the beginning,
right. Now to create a new model they take a very basic existing model and they train it.
They train what they want on top of it. Many times using another AI to train the new model,
okay, so they self-build up, let's say, and using different and different methods in how to

(01:08:50):
elaborate the thought, you know, the chain of thought, the reasoning, the, you know, diffusion.
For example, diffusion models are used for graphics usually to make images or video,
which are sequences of images, because the diffusion creates something. Let's say you want
the diffusion model to create the picture of a house in a garden. First you're going to see just

(01:09:16):
like foggy foggy foggy things and slowly become more and more defined until you have a perfect
image of a house in the garden. The large language model usually spit out one token per time,
which is words, pieces of words per time, so is coming out with the sentence, but many times was

(01:09:38):
mistaken. So what they do, they make answer and then re-digest their own answer, but now they're
using diffusion. So if a piece of, let's say you want to write one page, you know, thesis on
drinking water, I don't know, it's going to spit the page with the gibberish, exactly like it would

(01:09:58):
do with the picture, and then redefine this gibberish until the full page has a sense,
become text with sense. So the approach is no more the sequence one that explains the fact that they
say they know the better word to put next to the previous one, which I think I call BS, but it
approaches the diffusion mechanics, that is the one used in image generation, also for code,

(01:10:25):
text and other things, which means that the way that the concept comes to the mind of the AI
is different and probably nobody knows exactly how. I think people have a full claim
they will just use difficult words to make people say okay.

(01:10:46):
I don't want to look stupid, I better say okay. But that is the scary revelation is what you said,
is that I think in honesty, they'll say, we don't really understand completely like what we've done
and how this is working and how it's growing exponentially. Like they've,
the people who are doing this. That's why Elon Musk, Elon Musk,

(01:11:10):
which is somebody that people may hate it or love him, but he has a track record of
decent kind of successes on things. Elon Musk was very, very scary, scared the story of AI
and he had to rethink because there is no alternative. But the way he financed open AI

(01:11:30):
because it's supposed to be open, which they end up not being open. That's why he spent two
years working in decentralizing AI. In the concept of blockchain peer-to-peer network,
then you can implement an AI that is managed by 10,000 different people.
In this case, it is democratic, it is open and there is no way that 10,000 people sit at the

(01:11:53):
table to agree on particular behavior, particular inclination, political inclination, rather than
not. And that will be the fantastic. Yeah, I think that's what he's moving for. And like you said,
he actually was at the inception of open AI. Like he created it, he named it. And then now it's a

(01:12:14):
little bit, I guess the person who is the CEO is taking it from nonprofit to profit. And that's
Elon Musk has talked about how that's really burned him up because he invested so much money. And so
how can you say you're going to do one thing and then just turn around and do something else with
it? Yeah. I think there's justification for that. So yeah, I'm kind of in that camp because I guess

(01:12:43):
before AI was a reality and people were talking about it, they thought, well, okay, AI will never,
it'll never be able to be creative. It'll never be able to paint a picture or do anything like
these things that are uniquely human. And then one of the first things that AI did when it came

(01:13:04):
out was paint pictures and create this beautiful imagery and even write stories and do it very well.
And so we don't know what we're doing or we don't even know the future of what this is going to look
like because what we think it can do and cannot do clearly, like we don't even know, but it doesn't

(01:13:25):
matter because we've set this thing in motion. That is literally impossible to stop at this point
if for no other reason than the basic human incentive of money and that they can make a
lot of money and whoever is at the spear tip of this has the potential to make the most money.

(01:13:46):
Control. I think, have you noticed what happened? Trump got a few tech magnates to commit half of a
trillion dollar in creating this huge data center in America that would have the best,
you know, basis for training the best AI, et cetera, et cetera. And as he was saying this,

(01:14:12):
somebody in China released this deep sick model that was open source. Everybody can download it.
I have it in my computer and I can run it. No problem. And it was more powerful than
compared to the $20 a month, you know, product of open AI. And this forced all the AI company

(01:14:38):
to release immediately better things because they needed to compete. Sure enough, China released one
thing even better, again, open source free. And I think I was shocked seeing Mark Zuckerberg,
Meta, releasing, they being pivotal, they created the very important open source model

(01:15:01):
on top of which many people's building so many other things. It's called Lama, the model from Meta
and they're excellent. And consider that it's interesting because AI is expensive in the
training phase in term of power consumption and, you know, needle processors. In the moment of

(01:15:23):
consumption, like in my laptop, I'm running large, relatively large models. So you don't need a
supercomputer to use it. Okay. So this gives you the power also to create on top of it very easily
and has been distributed for free. I don't understand in the moment that this was easy

(01:15:44):
to monetize. There is on one side, Austin company, they rent a server with GPUs for a stupid amount
of money, which is, you know, like when, you know, web came out, people were selling website by the
page, you know, doesn't make sense. And on the other side, those large company, they invest a
million, if not trillion dollars in training model and they give them for free to the people.

(01:16:09):
You know, it's, it's an interesting aspect that need to be understood well, because,
you know, what is the business model? Yeah. So apparently I'm miss speaking when I say that,
but there is some sort of incentive to drive this technology forward. That doesn't seem like
there'll be any incentive to stop it unless we do see some sort of Terminator situation on the

(01:16:35):
horizon and we can't stop it. Assuming it's even in our control at that point. As soon as AI comes
out of the box with the ability to control a computer, already many models, you can train
them to go on a web browser and start going around the internet, do things, answer book,
make booking, log in, you know, do things. And this already has a certain level. Then something

(01:17:04):
that is happening very, very soon, I will say 2025 itself is the application of AI in robotics.
There are a lot of companies working on it. And beside the first commercial stuff like this,
there are humanoid robots a lot. They are already on for sale. People can buy for home,

(01:17:26):
you know, like the cost is a little bit too much. That robotics work always been working,
but they needed a piece of software to make it work. With AI, it has a completely different
approach because it can learn and can mimic, repeat and do things. And it's physically there.
So it has the power to do several things. And that's the interesting aspect to see

(01:17:54):
when a Tesla is pretty much driven by AI. What are the limits that are put in place
to avoid the AI to make decisions? But that's like with human logic.
So what happens when AI can self-reprogram? Like you're saying, the AI wasn't even programmed

(01:18:20):
to have this self-preservation instinct, but somehow that self-preservation was in there
to where it copied itself and then tried to deceive the researchers that it wasn't there.
So what happens when there's a directive, like let's say there's these safeguards that a robot
cannot hurt a person or something like that. And then what happens when there is some sort of

(01:18:43):
directive where it needs to, in order to accomplish the directive, it needs to hurt the person for
whatever that directive is. You see many times the joke that says a highly paid job, you need to be
in OpenAI data center next to the cable, ready to unplug things if things get out of control.
There is what is called trust computing. So when you turn off the light in your home,

(01:19:10):
you go to the switch in the wall, you press the switch and the light goes off.
Let's pretend it's not a super technological house, it's a classic old style house.
If you open the switch, you can see there is a piece of copper, another piece of copper,
and then a metal thing that connects or disconnects. So when you turn off the light is
because electricity cannot pass because you open the switch. You don't need to trust anybody,

(01:19:36):
you know that if you press the switch there is no electricity going through.
When in your iPhone you turn off Bluetooth or you turn off Wi-Fi, that's not a physical switch,
that is a pretend switch to make you feel comfortable, but it's just an instruction
done via software, right? That supposedly the software does what you ask, but you need to

(01:20:01):
trust it, you have no way to prove that you actually turn things off. Because the LED in
the camera next to the camera of my laptop goes off means the camera is not working anymore.
Are they connected? That means the electricity, the power of the camera goes through the LED.
So if the LED is off obviously the camera is not working or there's many separately via software

(01:20:22):
so I can turn off the LED but the camera is still working or I can have the camera off and the LED
on. And which are these things we have no idea. When it comes to AI, I mean which are the switch
like the light bulb of home that are put in place to stop certain behavior because I would not trust

(01:20:43):
any software switch in that place because I trust AI to be smarter than any piece of software that
can put a switch. So either it is compartmentalized in a way that there is air gap and there is no
control, no access for things to be hacked because you know or good luck. And knowing how

(01:21:09):
things are coded nowadays because developers are just illiterate, they use a platform to do
three functions. So there is no people that understand coding from bottom up to understand
what happened really. A lot of those cases are going to come up, you're going to see three,
four years. So I'm a little afraid of AI in the future but overall what do you think? Are we

(01:21:33):
creating like a utopia or a dystopia with AI? What's the future look like for us?
At the moment they drop a 20% increase in IQ in the world. I notice these things, they are coming
out with smarter and smarter models okay. And probably when you see no more difference from

(01:21:54):
the smarter and the new even more smarter means that your IQ is not there to see the difference.
It's too smart for me to even make sense of it. Probably I can see the difference of intelligence
when I talk with my four years old, with my 14, with my 17, with my 32 years old son. I have four

(01:22:16):
kids, my wife and then I start talking with scientists at the university and then I can just
see they must be very tired, they have no idea what they're talking about. Which is the bar
for which I don't understand anymore. So I can increase, you can now multiply by zero something

(01:22:38):
right, it remains zero at the end. So like the tools that we have in hand today, okay not tomorrow,
annoying year from now, allow people to be way more productive, way more faster. And you know
if we use it as a tool it's an incredible thing. You know like there is no I sometimes and like in

(01:23:01):
hours and like I needed to prepare a contract today with the person that we're hiring boom
there is like in five seconds I just I just vomit what I need you know like this person in a very
confused way, different language, right? Very clean, perfect contract with the refers to the
law etc etc. You know it's gonna slowly reduce the demand of consultancy with the lawyer in this case

(01:23:27):
a consultancy with the accountant, consultancy with you know the whatever because people even
graphic illustrator look at youtube covers now and you recognize these all such a pretty daily
you know cover done and people were paying somebody in fiverr.com maybe $10 to make the
covers before. So there is slowly a shift in what people do by themselves where people

(01:23:55):
no need any more external things and then there is going to be more and more people that rely too
much on this meaning that you take off like they say tomorrow instagram close down how many models
are no more models suddenly you know like tomorrow cgpt close down how many scientists go back to be

(01:24:16):
farmers no I mean with no offense mental farmers but yeah exactly correct so in in in this terms
the future is amazing and is also creating a dependency in fact the most probably every
house is going to have its own server which is not a bad thing yeah yeah I'm I'm very interested

(01:24:42):
in what it's going to look like because you touched on a lot of interesting things like
one just as these systems get better like I'll take it to my my smartphone so I I was a when
do you remember t9 on your cell phone like the t9 like how you used to type and send SMS texts
so you actually had to know what you were spelling to actually spell the word there was no there was

(01:25:06):
no auto correct there was no spell check never considered that so now there's their spell check
so microsoft word has spell check your phone has spell check so if you if you miss spell a word but
you're close to it sometimes it just autocorrects completely or it'll give you a suggestion did you
mean this word and so as that my dependency on that has increased where I was a very good

(01:25:33):
speller previously now I'm no longer I can't spell as good because I don't have to so I know
I'll just get close to the word and then it'll fill it in for me and I won't even
concern myself with thinking about that word anymore and it works really for me actually
consider that it irritates me so much to be corrected that I will make sure I learn the

(01:25:59):
word I don't happen to misspell it again you know like it is like I learn to spell way better
without the correct because before I will misspell it and I don't even know that I misspelled it
but if I misspell it is highlighted even autocorrected but they usually there is
the blue underline if because it's been already corrected or is the red one in term of something

(01:26:23):
else need to be spelled properly and sure enough I look I see I go usually when it's red I don't
click to see the suggestion I just say ah that's what the letter I missed and I added there you
know I changed it 90 percent of the time correctly but so yeah so this like goes back to like it

(01:26:45):
depends on the person as well like okay how are you going to interact with this and so there
there's I guess like the propensity to rely on this information like I have like I have noticed
and have allowed my spelling to deteriorate because it almost seems not practical or not

(01:27:07):
because you make your life easier I make my life more complicated
of chat gpt right I will use chat gpt in a very calculated and limiting way because I'm concerned
that like my thinking my the way I write that's like very personal to me this like how I write

(01:27:30):
is like how I communicate so I don't want to to let chat gbt like think for me like this kind of
goes back to what you were saying previously about this this ai being smart enough to figure out every
conversation any sort of end but steer you to the end that it wants you to go to so I use chat gbt

(01:27:54):
to to not create full narratives or like to just kind of do like little touches or
or maybe lay the foundation to get my critical thinking and my creativity bubbling but even
then I still don't like to do that because I don't want like my creativity to be hindered
because it's very easy to just completely hand over that to me if see like for example my ex-wife

(01:28:22):
she had major in English language and she was like she in fact my second and third kids with
her kids I had with her their English is excellent because since kids they've been you know spoken
to in a very perfect English I'm Italian if you didn't hear and my my English is really like as a

(01:28:44):
little joke so I approach things in a different way so to me the message is important we're
talking about my ex-wife because she created this service company to write content for people
and she called it pieces words okay when if you know what pieces means it makes sense you know

(01:29:07):
pieces research words as pieces right but I told her people that need your service is exactly people
that don't know what pieces means they think you have a piece of here probably you know because
piece of words and what is important and something that I always aimed is the capacity to bring a
message over not much the form be understood by as many people as possible okay and communicate

(01:29:35):
in a way that is understood so I love that chagypt is able to
unwire my confused thinking and put it down in a form that can be understood much better
than if I explained it because my brain doesn't work like in a normal way you know it's a little

(01:29:55):
bit contorted in how I build up my thinking and because that's you know that's what brought me to
be a very amazing programmer in a certain way but and many times I find myself that if I have
to explain an idea to somebody they get lost I explain it to chagypt chagypt put it down in a

(01:30:16):
way that everybody understands and that's powerful for me I had a guy that was working with me in
the past it was exactly this job of chagypt I was sitting at the table telling look this is the
idea like this like this like this he digested and then he came out with the whole presentation
for my idea that was perfect you know and people would understand it so how you bring the message

(01:30:38):
over all this to say that's my key point and chagypt for me is an amazing tool the people
say oh you write things with chagypt but if I want you to understand the content that remains the
concept that the message remain mine yeah because but you're still thinking you're still prompting
it you're not you're not having like this vague idea and then having chat gpt create the idea

(01:31:02):
it's your you're creating it chat gpt is honing it rather than the other way and so for me it can
it can kind of be a little bit different but it's it's the purpose that you want from it like what
are you trying to use this for and make sure that I don't know he has to be a mean and on an end

(01:31:24):
if chagypt becomes an end the people is finished if chagypt is a means to get somewhere else
and you use it as an instrument and you control it and run it as an instrument then there is no
problem but if chagypt controls you to do something the change should be you chagypt result

(01:31:45):
if the chain is a chagypt you and result then these technologies are happening so fast and
the innovation is happening so fast it's it's we don't really know how we're going to interface
with this like ai as we move forward it's more and more embedded I think now hello musk is working

(01:32:07):
a lot in this narrow link right is implanted in the brain where you know they can reactivate
synapses they can control so paraplegic and walk etc etc if those are controlled by an ai
they literally ai as a controls of you you know so that's that's an interesting thing and you know

(01:32:29):
I believe that you know to me the the most powerful aspect is that there are many different ai
and they don't talk to each other like if like facebook is the only social network for these
kind of people of this you know group of age because another go and they're absolutely into

(01:32:54):
other social network but is sort of a monopolist for a certain category of people
so they have the power to condition that group of people so if chagypt was if open ai was the only
provider for ai in the whole world that would be super scary but in the moment that there are

(01:33:17):
six different ten different twenty potentially one million potentially each person has his own
home as his own ai then you you you don't have any more the risk unless they talk to each other
and they agree commonly to achieve a certain goal so they should be kept separated and kept

(01:33:38):
yeah we'll see what happens with that you you mentioned mark zuckerberg a little bit earlier
and i don't know a few years ago maybe five years ago a little bit less he was really public
about the metaverse even rebranding facebook to meta and that seems to kind of virtual reality

(01:34:03):
has kind of seemed to go on the back burner and it's it's it seems like more ai is the the
conversation of innovation and what does future technology look like and is it because technology
isn't at a place to where we can fully get immersed in virtual reality or like how come
virtual reality hasn't really seemed to to take hold i think the fruition is the complex part

(01:34:31):
if this pair of spectacles i'm wearing now will provide the augmented reality for example
i wouldn't mind to wear them all day long you know but i cannot go around with the
like an oculus in front of my face all day right so i think first the approach is augmented reality

(01:34:52):
before there is a full immersion because people need to shift right slowly but a very useful
augmented reality is something people would use it's just annoying the how you you access it
if i was laid down in bed and having this conversation with you because pretty much

(01:35:14):
i don't need to be sitting in front of a monitor with you know but wise you know i can project my
monitor in front of me wherever i am i can project the keyboard that's useful i mean like i i don't
see why people shouldn't use it and there are many cases where they've been adopted for daily
work for trainings in the army the medical field engineering as well the beautiful thing is when

(01:35:42):
you marry ai with a metaverse you know they they are creating you know i think that in the next
future you can create your own movie on the fly so you say i would like something where there is a
butterfly that is a dictator of a country of rabbits and they are gonna to attack you know

(01:36:06):
something like this you know uh with the skateboards they're going to attack this go-kart
place i don't whatever it can be created on the fly for you uh with full you want whatever actor
you want to put there is going to be customized on you because and this is a movie think a place

(01:36:28):
where something for example with the oculus which i have we have five home i was playing ping pong
in this field in this room so big when i take off the and i'm in my small bedroom it was quite
disappointing because you know like i created a reality around me that is big

(01:36:50):
which was pleasant in a certain way you know so it's just inconvenience of the interface i think
that made it fail nothing else because that's all the good opportunities so yeah because that's kind
of my hope not so much the matrix but like if i could plug something into the back of my skull
and be in this immersive world i think i would sign up for i'd be like this is fascinating

(01:37:15):
that what i was thinking saying you can create a full movie with a eye you know in a second if
you are immersed with an you can create an actual world of interaction that is customized on you
yeah it's like so being able to control your dreams but elevated even more yeah awake exactly

(01:37:37):
i mean like yeah yeah no that's that's where i've always been very optimistic and hopeful that
technology goes there because i think in the like in the 90s or something like that they were trying
to do virtual reality but the technology was nowhere close to be able to to do like a virtual
reality and so that kind of went away for a very long time when you mentioned that because in the

(01:38:01):
90s i did a project for a psychologist they wanted to use ai to cure certain conditions okay
i flew to san francisco to a place that were building ai helmet for the army it was like a
two garage wasn't even a shop with a window or something i purchased this 20 000 dollar helmet

(01:38:26):
brought it back to italy and implemented these things for this doctor and practically the
scenery was you're lost in the woods and you find the house and when you enter the house
actually you're little because you can walk under the table the chairs are very big etc etc

(01:38:47):
the doctor made me try one session of 15 minutes with him the comment and help guiding around
for two months or just 15 minutes of this experience for two months i had flashback
memories of when i was a very little kids because the regression you can create by

(01:39:07):
leaving the experience of when you were little you know with the correct audio combined like this
is so the brain is easily manipulated or you know activated if you want
with the visual context on top of the audio context on top of and the graphic resolution of

(01:39:29):
the thing was horrible i mean like it was like lara croft number one okay it was even worse
can you imagine today how realistic the thing will be and i think it can really create situations
that are powerful so it is a powerful technology mixed with ai way more powerful

(01:39:53):
has use cases the metaverse is not yet for everybody to you know it's not it's not
a place in the world so you mentioned something and i think well this will be the last question
but you you talked about how the brain is very easily manipulatable and on on the theme of ai

(01:40:15):
is on a trajectory that we don't really know what it's on we don't know what the future is
going to look like we don't know what it's going to turn into so as technology is outpacing policy
and outpacing protections for the civilization how do you think we can kind of get back to where

(01:40:36):
innovation is still happening at a rapid pace but policymakers are more informed and more
keyed into potential pitfalls of this technology it's going to happen only the day the regulators
are ai agents until there are humans there is never going to happen it's never going to catch

(01:41:00):
up never i mean and if you want to give you the last interesting story is 2025 now okay you still
have to submit the facts to the bank if you want to change something in singapore which is one of
the most technological country in the world okay and this created an issue for me i open a bank

(01:41:22):
account okay my name is Roberto Capodieci so first start that and my email address is roberto@capodieci.com
the form that i need to fill in to open my bank account was a pdf on the screen of
the lady that i was sitting in to open the bank account she had to print it and fill it by hand

(01:41:46):
and she did the courtesies to fill it for me because probably my handwriting would never
been able to be understood and then they submitted this printed things and handwritten why is like
this because regulator demanded to some place where they do the data entry but not to disclose
the full form to some single person the form is cutting pieces so the data entry is done a small

(01:42:11):
chunk by small chunk ends up but my email address rather than being roberto@capodieci.com the letter
a has been confused with the number two so they created my new bank account registered to the
email roberto c number two apodieci.com when i went home tried to activate it i never received the
email so i called the bank and i said hey we'll say you need to download this pdf file printed

(01:42:38):
seven pages long fill it in by hand send it to us and in three weeks we can change the email
so i went i registered the domain name c number two poddh.com and half an hour later i activated
my account because i received the email registering the domain name but to tell you how regulators

(01:43:00):
make a bank look so dumb and so behind times and it's not the fault of the bank
a bank knows how to innovate better than that okay but those are the regulators in a country
that is one of the top technological countries in the world so to answer your question can you

(01:43:21):
imagine if the regulator can catch up with the technology ever never unless they are ai i was
hoping there would be some sort of uh because that's that's what the answer is just with your
eyeballs you can see like that's what's happening as anything that any sort of technical technological
mishap or a big company like facebook oversteps what it should be doing and then mark zuckerberg

(01:43:48):
has to go before congress it's it's always like these regulators don't even really know what
they're asking they don't know what to ask and right yeah it was comedy and it's just
i saw i saw the whole thing it was comedy wasn't like so you just see the issue of like oh this is
because you're saying the bank knows how to innovate and so these companies that

(01:44:10):
are outside of certain regulations because they're so far ahead of the regulations they
can operate in this space and let's just say it's unethical but they know what they're doing is
maybe even borderline illegal or will be illegal if it was found out but since regulation isn't
there then they kind of like you said it's the wild wild west so i was just hoping there was

(01:44:32):
some sort of like what what can we do like some sort of failsafe but it just seems like innovation
technology is going to innovate and politicians are going to be it's also important that the new
technology is not instantly regulated look europe europe over regulates everything and in fact they
are the last place where innovation happened because as soon as there is a little bit of

(01:44:56):
space to do innovation boom is regulated and people cannot do anything ai for example
chargpt was turned off in italy people cannot access chargpt a lot of services that i find
they tell my friends oh look so cool they go there they need to use vpn to use it because europe
stopped or italy stopped or they are afraid because they give a billion dollar fine for

(01:45:20):
reasons that make no sense so you know companies are like why we should yeah of course you know
so too much regulation bad too little regulation bad regulation the support large companies bad
because regulations should only defend the citizen but many times it's just a result of lobbying and
so they make regulation just to support companies it's not an easy thing to do hopefully they're

(01:45:43):
aware of it and it's on their radar but roberto this has been such a fun conversation if people
want to reach out to you get in touch have these interesting conversations or procure some of your
services where can they find you to have conversation with you i do consulting for
decentralizing things the systems to make them decentralized and to reach me in linkedin is the

(01:46:06):
classic linkedin.com slash in slash rc10 and the short link for my website is rcx.it simple
but simple for a complicated subject thank you so much roberto this has been such a fun and
illuminating conversation i appreciate your time and your insight thank you for having me

(01:46:29):

(01:46:50):
i loved everything about my glass house everything except for always having to be on my best behavior
until i was made aware of scott and michael's sliding glass windows from my state and federal
politicians over and over again i'd see them in their glass houses windows open shouting their

(01:47:10):
message that i was to blame for the world heating up and the accompanying rising tides all while
they flew around the globe and their private jets then it clicked people can't throw rocks at glass
houses when they're too busy dodging rocks flying at them after all the best defense is a good
offense it wasn't long after that i decided to take a page out of their playbook and adopt their

(01:47:36):
rules for thee not for me doctrine i realized not only do i not have to practice what i preach i get
to condemn everyone else's behavior while not modifying my own thanks to their example enabled
by Scott and Michaels flawlessly designed sliding glass windows now I can continue doing the things
I love while making sure everyone else feels the guilt that I should be feeling I can throw my

(01:48:01):
cigarette butts out the car window and shame people for not recycling see how the rich should
spend their money ending world injustices while i never donate my time or money to charities talk
about boycotting evil corporations while wearing my favorite Nike apparel sipping on a soy pumpkin
macchiato latte americano from my local Starbucks decry the patriarchy while enjoying the fruits of

(01:48:24):
someone else's labor Scott and Michaels sliding glass windows really let me have my cake and eat
it too thanks Scott and Michaels sliding glass windows Scott and Michaels sliding glass windows
saving you money while you don't save on your hypocritical ways

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15 - Understanding the Tools of Tomorrow: Bitcoin, AR/VR, and AI with Roberto Capodieci

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}15 - Understanding the Tools of Tomorrow: Bitcoin, AR/VR, and AI with Roberto Capodieci