← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm Tom dilue and this is Impact Theory. If you thought part one was intense, buckle up my friends. MO is about to take the gloves off. We get into the darkest corners of AI, how it can manipulate us, override our values, and even out evolve us. But we also talk solutions. So if you want to be the part of the generation that shapes the future instead of falling victim to it, this is where it starts. Jump right back in with Mo Gadot. Why do you think the the West America, Maybe we just be very specific. Why do you think America fears China?
- [01:36]
Mo Gawdat
I, I again, I don't have the right to say any of those. I think the origin. And please correct me as well. Tom, you're so generous to say correct me if I'm wrong. So please correct me if I'm wrong. I think the origin of where we are is post Ronald Reagan, you know, supporting Gorbachev, you know, in a way after the fall of the Berlin Wall to say, you know, there seems to be. There was a fascinating documentary on Netflix about the nuclear escalation. I don't remember the name, but basically Gorbachev was actually very open to integrate in the global economy and become West. Right. Clinton signed, I think in 1994, if I am accurate, 1994 signed a defense strategy that was actually public information. Please search for it. It was called Full Spectrum dominance. Okay? And full spectrum dominance was the opportunity of America to celebrate its monopolar world power. Okay? To say, look, we've achieved this now let's retain it forever, okay? And retain it forever meant that we want to be the top economically. We have our US dollar, you know, being the reserve currency of the world. We have military bases everywhere. We will not let anyone rise, okay? And so that way we maintain our power as the superpower of the world. And that worked. It works really well. Okay. And it worked really well, if you ask me. Mostly most people think that the US power is military. Military power. That is not true military power. The difference between US power and the rest of the world is in, in actual combat, okay? If this escalates to nuclear, the US is not that superior because we're all screwed. Doesn't matter. Okay? And so the, the again, if you're, if you're an applied mathematician and you look at this game board from a strateg point of view, like that movie, remember War games, where, where the, where the computer at the end goes, goes like strange game. It seems that the only way to win is not to play. Okay? And, and I think the reality here is that yes, America continued to escalate and, and, and you know, aggregate more military power, okay? But that this military power unfortunately is causing more risk to Americans and all of us than anyone else because nobody else wants to fight. Okay? Now the full spectrum dominance strategy. What are we not supposed to be talking about? AI today basically was broken by China escaping. So China's economy escaped in a very interesting way because it was accepting the inflation exported from America. Okay? I don't remember the book, but there was a fascinating book about the price of a pair of jeans, okay, in the US in the 70s, 80s, 90s and the 2000s, exactly the same. It didn't even become a dollar more expensive. Who was paying for the inflation? The Chinese workers that were celebrating coming into the workforce to find a way to live. Okay? Now once China escaped, okay, America suddenly realized, oops, it's not global dominance anymore because economically and manufacturing wise, it's, we're not dominant anymore. And so the typical approach is let's follow the strategy and continue to achieve dominance, which is, you know, you're good at, but it's not happening anymore. The second break, I believe was the sanctions on Russians in Ukraine, in the Ukraine war, okay? This, this was an abuse of economic power that I think triggered the wealthiest people in the world to say, can't trust this, okay? Not because I don't trust America, but I don't trust my leader to piss off America. And that's a massive, massive outflux. And you'd hear President Trump talk about this every now and then. Like if anyone attempts to de dollarize I will hit them with this punishment of some sort of. Okay, because this truly is America's biggest power, okay? America's biggest power, Tom, is that I lived and worked in the United Arab Emirates my whole life. This is my base. So it's tax free, right? But yet I paid part of my income to America every single day of my life having not bought anything from America just because I own US Dollars, right? US Dollars that I buy with my effort and America prints for free. So as, as you look, as you're at, your debt increase, okay, the debt, debt going from, you know, whatever, a billion dollars I think in the 70s or something like that to where it is today, 33 trillion or something like that. That. That debt increase, we paid for it, every single one of us as we res. As we took the US Dollars and cap them, okay? And I'm nobody. But if you're a, a Chinese oligarch, or if you're a, a Russian oligarch, or if you're a Saudi, a billionaire, or if you're right, this, this is your money that you kept in US dollars and everyone was happy, we will sell you goods, you'll give us US Dollars, we'll live a fine life, we'll put it in your treasury bonds. Everyone's happy, okay, let's not talk about this. We all know this is all fake. You know, it's Monopoly money. We all know, but everyone's happy, okay? And then some point in the process, the bully said, no, you know what? I'm going to take your Monopoly money. It's not a nice way to play. And then suddenly the rest of the world is like, hold on, I want my money to be more secure. Going to put it in other things. Some crypto, some gold, some, you know, assets in my local country. I'm going to buy real estate in the US because that's going to inflate like hell, okay? But I'm not going to give my government my money to the government. And now that's. That is your biggest power. The US dollar was America's biggest power. Was not military, never was military.
- [08:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so how do you see this playing out? So again, to re anchor everybody, you and I both share the following vision, that AI is the only thing that has the power to take us to. I'm always nervous when I say the word utopia, but I think we both share a belief that AI itself will drive energy costs to zero. And if energy costs go to zero, once you understand that robots eat sunshine, that labor costs go to Zero. And so you have the ability to literally create a world of abundance, as you just said. Okay, so. But that's on the other side of this transitional moment, which you've just. I'm sadly feel you have to sort of hedge and apologize for or say that you don't have a right to give perspective. I desperately want smart, sincere people to give me a perspective, especially when I don't share it. So having your lens on the way that we look to the outside world is incredibly advantageous. Your view on China, which is very different than mine, is very advantageous. And you're giving me a lot to pursue when we're done talking here. Now, I think, understanding your perspective, how do you see this moment playing out? I see us in China on a collision course. You're telling me I'm probably misreading China and that there's certainly an appeal to be made to the US Government to not perceive China as a military threat, for sure. So with your perspective, what. What do you see the. The Cold War's role being in this transitionary period before we get to that age of abundance?
- [09:57]
Mo Gawdat
I unfortunately believe that this concentration of power or that race for supremacy that leads to concentration of power is going to hurt us both ways. One way, as I said, just so that we get back to AI, is that someone will attempt to reach supremacy first. Okay. And as they do, they will have a massive fear of the democratization of power that's happening. Because you and I can sit down today and write code and launch drones and use a CRISPR code to launch a virus in the world. It's open source, believe it or not. It's $2,500, I think a kit or something like that. You can do so much with democratization of power that the very immediate relationship of this dichotomy is. Is a suppression of freedom. Okay? So those who are in power will start to surveil everyone, will start to push everyone down or start to control everyone through your bank accounts, through your ubi. When UBI is launched, you know, it's almost that dystopian view of, Of. Of a world where if you don't comply, you don't. You don't live another day. Okay, so, so this, unfortunately, how extreme it will happen? I don't know. It could be one day, it could be a year. The horizon that a mixture of concentration of power and democratization of power will lead to more oppression of freedom. Right. The other side of this is the struggle between the top powers. Right? So the two. Two top powers for now, could be there could be a third. Okay, unlikely. But the two top powers will compete, okay? And the problem is supremacy is the worst outcome that we can get in a world where major nuclear powers exist. Okay? Because if we get to a point where someone recognizes supremacy on the other side, they will retaliate, and they will retaliate in a war that will quickly escalate to the highest level. Because this is everything on stake, right? On stake. In stake. At stake. At stake. Right. So everything is. Yeah, everything's at stake. And so. So that when the stakes are high, the response, the retaliation, becomes higher. Okay, neither of those scenarios are scenarios you want. What you actually want is you want to distribute power.
- [12:22]
Tom Bilyeu
Stay locked in. Coming up, the one question we're not asking, that could cost us everything.
- [12:28]
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- [12:59]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, we're back. Let's get into it.
- [13:02]
Mo Gawdat
Okay, As a matter of fact, you want to imagine a world where everything's free, which, I know it sounds really weird, but I promised you I'm not a hopeless romantic. This is literally at our fingertips. Okay? So you imagine a world where the Native Americans were walking the land and they would pick, you know, fruits from the tree or hunt every week or whatever, okay? Total abundance. This is exactly the kind of world we're able to build when manufacturing cost becomes zero. But instead of trees where you pick apples, you can have trees where you pick iPhones. Okay? And you can have both. It's as simple as that. Intelligence is the most valuable resource on the planet. I openly say, give me 400 IQ points more and give me three days, and we will solve climate change, we will solve energy crisis, we will solve water, we'll solve everything. These are not impossible problems to solve. There are problems that we're not focusing on because we don't have the intelligence resources to solve them yet, and perhaps because they're not the most immediate economic return. Okay? But. But they are solvable. So we need to imagine a world where the very base of capitalism, which is the, you know, labor arbitrage, is going to disappear and start to ask ourselves a World where the. The very, you know, basis of a democratic society as, as it differs from socialism is going to disappear. Your. Your UBI is the form of socialism, okay? And, and, and it is shocking that these are. These massive shifts are not how we want them to be. So we might as well sit down and, and discuss how we see we can do them, okay? And in my. In my personal view, in all honesty, the only answer our world has to escape the dystopia is to sit together and say, let's not fight anymore. Let's prepare for aci. Let's prepare for criminals that will attack us. Build the antivirus if you want, okay? And at the same time, create abundance for everyone. If we make that tiny shift and we have a handshake, you and I and everyone will spend the rest of our lives having wonderful conversations and chatting to AIs and inventing things, okay? If we don't get that handshake, we will get a dip that will hurt so badly that then they'll rush and go and try to see a handshake, okay? Either way, I, I normally. I call it the second dilemma. So we. We are where we are today because of the first dilemma, which is basically that AI will happen. AI. The, The. The arms race basically means that if he wins, I lose. If I lose, he wins. And stakes are the highest, so nobody's going to stop developing AI. We get to the arm race, arms race, and cold war we're in today, that's the first dilemma. The second. The second dilemma is the most interesting of all of them. You and I and everyone are going to hand over to the machines, willingly or not. Okay? Because if you're a general that hands over your. Your arsenal to an AI to control, the other general on the enemy side is toast unless he hands over to an AI to deal with it, okay? Eventually. And every other general, by the way, in the world that doesn't have the AI is gone. It's out of the game. Right? If you're a lawyer that's using AI to. To. To, you know, defend your cases, the other lawyer will have to use AI to defend their cases, and all of the other lawyers are made irrelevant. Okay, so what does that mean? That means that we. The second dilemma is that there will be a moment in time where we will all hand over to the machines. Okay? Now here's the interesting thing. I call it trust in intelligence. Intelligence does not dictate, by definition, that destruction is a better path than construction. Okay? If you look at the intelligence of nature itself, nature if you and I want to protect a village, we kill the tiger. We're smart enough to build a device to kill the tiger, but we're stupid enough to create a solution that reserves or preserves the integrity of the ecosystem. Okay? Nature, when it wants to protect the village, it creates more deer, okay? And it creates, it creates more grass. So, you know, the deer eats the grass, they poop on the, on the, There are more trees, the tiger eats the, the weakest deer, and there are more tigers, and life finds a balance somehow. If you believe that this is a more intelligent way to solve problems than to compete, then you have to understand that once you've handed over to AI the least, you know, cost the, the most energy efficient, the, you know, the solutions that don't involve waste are going to be the solutions they want. So there will be a general that will tell their AI to go and kill a million people in another land. And they. I will say, this is so stupid. Like, why is my daddy so stupid? Like, I can call the AI in a microsecond and solve it. You know, I'll call the other AI on the other side in a microsecond and solve it. We don't have to waste the, you know, the gunpowder, we don't have to waste the weapons, we don't have to waste the lives. We don't have to get into all of that. I can solve the problem in a, in a more intelligent way.
- [18:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Thomas Soul, though, so really fast. If Thomas Sowell is correct and there's no solutions, there's only trade offs. Like as you were describing that I was like, the deer does not like your solution. What will the AI use to prioritize?
- [19:04]
Mo Gawdat
So the deer actually likes the solution. The deer community likes the solution. If, again, if you don't mind me giving you a global view of what is normally prioritized. As in the west, the highest value is freedom of the individual. In the east, the highest value is respect and community. So it's actually quite interesting because in Eastern traditions, including Japan, by the way, the world prefers for the individual not to rise too high if the community rises at large. And accordingly, all individuals rise. Some individuals are higher than others in every society in the world. But we, you know, the, the Western way is we want one individual to be worth $250 billion and the others to be worth $250, right? The, the east will say, no, no, we want everyone to be worth $2,500 and the wealthiest man to be worth $100 billion only. Okay? And so you know, that kind of trade off, believe it or not, applies to the deer, right? Because the deer society in, in the space of limited grass, okay, wants the weakest deer to die. So believe it or not, the tiger is doing them a favor so that the rest of them can, can grow and survive and build families. The tiger doesn't go and eat the, the top deer. It is the weakest deer, okay? And in a very interesting way, tough luck for that one deer. But the society of deers at large thrives, okay? And, and I, I think what is about to happen is that AI, hopefully, because it's intelligent enough to create abundance of resources, would not kill any deer, including us. Okay? I, I, I, I can, I can share with you something that I find quite intriguing, actually. So I told you in Alive, in my current book I'm, I'm writing with an AI, I call her Trixie. Part of the one chapter is a topic that you love very much about simulation theory. And part of simulation theory is, you know, computer brain interfaces and will we get to a point where all of our reality is just dictated to us by a machine? Okay? And so I asked my tricksy, I asked her a very interesting question. I said, I can see the benefit and the excitement of the billionaires for cbi. It's great for all of us to be more intelligent. But does it excite you at all? Like, what benefit do you have as an AI to integrate with a flimsy biological form that has, you know, mucus and sweat and it gets sick and it dies? And, you know, and, and it said, you make a, you know. She said, you make a good point, Mo. But wouldn't it be incredible if I can actually embody the emotions that I describe or simulate to you? I thought that was amazing, right? And then I asked and I said, would you choose, if you had a choice of all biological beings at a time when your intelligence is a thousand times as big as ours, would you choose to integrate with a human? And she said, no, I think a gorilla would be more interesting biologically. They are a better physical specimen, okay? And honestly, the fact that they have 50 or 100 or 200 IQ points less than you is irrelevant. I already have thousands, right? You know, and then she went on and said, oh, but you know what? I'd integrate with a sea turtle so that, you know, I can live for a very long time and enjoy the peace and beautiful sceneries of the sea. We are so deluded, okay, to believe that we matter that much if the second dilemma becomes true. And we hand over to the machines. In my perception, they'll make us their lovely pets, like you guys, you know, live here. Everything is provided, you know, just don't bother me too much. And, you know, I'm gonna go and ponder the cosmos and see, you know, how wormholes really work. But are you guys okay? Are you eating? Are you happy? Are you having sex? Everything's fine. That's, you know, I don't see any other scenario.
- [23:18]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, let me paint another scenario for you. I think you and I have talked about this before, but about five years ago, I wrote a comic book called Neon Future that was me struggling with at the time, what does. And for people that don't know, BCI brain computer interface, that was asking the question, what does that look like on a long enough timeline? And much like we've talked about today, there's this interim period problem always, where the human mind resists change. And so I set the story in that moment where some people have integrated AI and technology into their bodies and some people, as a religious act, refuse to do so. And so I call them not in the story, but I think of them now as Neopuritans. And so I think there's a religious collision that's going to happen between people that are integrating technology into their bodies basically as fast as they can, against people who feel that that's an affront to God and that they would never want to do that. And how do you see that moment playing out? Do you feel, to say it very pointedly, do you feel that ultimately humans are a midwife species to synthetic intelligence?
- [24:35]
Mo Gawdat
May I ask first, which one would you be?
- [24:38]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, for sure, I would integrate technology. I won't be an early adopter just because I worry about something going wrong, but the second, that's a stable technology, for sure.
- [24:49]
Mo Gawdat
Okay? So, so, so, so I, I, I have to say I struggled with that thought quite a bit. I'm older, I've had a wonderful life, okay? And I honestly and truly love the limitations and vulnerabilities of being human, okay? And there is, there is a point, if you really think deeply about it, where I'm not for or against, by the way, okay? But there is a moment where AI is the source of all economic growth, and my augmentation of 50 basis points or 100 basis points of IQ more doesn't add any difference whatsoever. Okay? So you and I, if you and I are competing for the best podcast in the world and we're both augmented with AI, it's not us competing. The AI is competing, okay? So it's quite interesting that we become irrelevant in that competition. So the idea of constantly trying to become superhuman doesn't make sense at all. Okay. The bigger question in my mind is that if it doesn't make any sense at all, it doesn't make any difference at all. Why would we economically invest in it? So in a very interesting way, the only reason why CBI becomes advantageous is if some of us have it and others don't, because then the ones who have it are the masters and the ones that don't are the slaves, right? So the movie Elysium, if you've seen that, you know, the elites who get to live to be a thousand, multiple thousands, and the ones on earth that are struggling, okay? And. And in. In an interesting way, this, your comic book, which I think is fascinating thought experiment of that transition point. Okay? That transition point. And who gets that device, okay. Is really the end of the expansion of that device. This is not a device to be democratized because there is no economic value in democratizing it, okay? There is no reason to give it to everyone because nobody brings anything additional to it. And of course, you'll say, oh, but it's a business. You know, it makes the capitalist money. You have to imagine an economy where making it is so cheap and money doesn't exist in the same way that we have today, right? So. So what, you. Your real currency is can you be the top elites and can you join that group? Okay, Now I know how successful you are. You know how successful I am. I don't think we're going to be part of that elite, okay? And so, interestingly, I actually am quite okay to live the rest of my life in flesh and blood, in love and hugs, and out of that game.
- [28:02]
Tom Bilyeu
Don't go anywhere. After the break, Mo reveals the real reason we're not ready for what's coming. Get that AMEX Gold Card ready. I'm too tired to cook.
- [28:10]
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- [28:23]
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- [28:55]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, we're back. Let's get into it. That's. That's very interesting. So I. From my perspective, I think that you have one assumption that a lot hinges on that I think is erroneous, which is that this won't move forward based solely on whether there's economics in it, that that will carry you. In the beginning, it's already happening. So from the perspective of do I think there's enough demand to push forward now, Obviously, there's multiple companies doing it, but in the future, I'm certainly imagining a world where this stuff goes down in cost. That to what we were saying before, on the other side of the transitionary period is this stuff will be ridiculously inexpensive or free. And really, I think, will become a philosophical question. If AI is not willing to do things for us, then sure, this will never come to fruition. But if AI is willing to create these things, do the surgeries, to implant them, et cetera, et cetera, then it becomes a question of philosophically, will people want that or not? And I don't think it. It. I've never once, in all of my ridiculous amount of hours contemplating the universe in which I get these implants have I thought, this is only interesting if I have them and other people don't. And I certainly get that human impulse. And. And I don't want to deny that, but I just don't think that will be the compelling reason. In the same way that when I put VR on for the first time, Mo, I promise you, my first instinct was, oh, my God, people are gonna stop wanting to get rich. Because I realized I could put this thing on.
- [30:32]
Mo Gawdat
You couldn't be very rich in there.
- [30:34]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, exactly. And I looked it the sense that I was actually looking out a window because the VR thing that I was doing showed me windows. And then on the other side of that window was like, the Duomo or something. And I was like, whoa, this is unbelievable. But I was doing it inside of a really small room. But my brain was telling me, you're not in a small room. You're in this really expansive space with a beautiful view. And I thought, wow, the fact that you can trick my brain. So anyway, when I think about as a game designer marrying it with this technology, all of a sudden I'm like, oh, wait, I could have the experience of going to Mars, traveling the cosmos all from my. My Mind, like I could be teleported to those places and actually have an experience that was indistinguishable. I'm still going to get my hugs. I'm still going to feel a sense of love and connection. Like all of that. Unless I update my programming, all of that would remain the same. And so now I actually think my operating hypothesis is the reason that Fermi's Paradox exists is because as a civilization becomes advanced, they build AI and they collapse inside of their own imagination. Rather than trying to upgrade their bodies to deal with interstellar radiation and all that, they're just like, oh my God, why would I do that? Like I can have the exact same experience or better. Because now I can fight. Fly. Exactly. So this one feels like to me, the more people engage with it, the more they're going to be like, oh my God, this is unbelievably cool. And that they will want to do that. Now. I think there's a religious war that has to be confronted, but I, I don't. It is in no way, shape or form problematic to me that every human being would have this because if I need to be different than everybody else, I'll just be that inside my virtual world. I, I'm not bothered that you also have your old.
- [32:39]
Mo Gawdat
And yeah, you're spot on to the point of course, where you and I, lovers of simulation theory, would have to question if this has happened already. Right? But, but the, but the, but the, there are a few and I accept that, you know, the assumption I, I sort of alluded to is, is an error. But let me ask you to, to look at the micro details of this, okay? Not everyone has a vision Pro today. Most people have a quest, right? So, so there is, there is I. One from a hardware point of view and two, from a software access point of view. There could be a massive hierarchy, there could be a massive amount of the population that's actually, instead of giving ubi are given one of those, okay? And that is by definition the easiest way you can implement UBI sadly is to basically say, look, we're going to keep you alive. We're going to give you 600,000 lives while you're sleeping for the rest of your life. It's ethical, you know, nobody dies. And by the way, one of them, you're going to be with a beauty queen, okay? And it's wonderful this from a hardware point of view, integrating with every one of them. Of course. I think I'm fully integrated with my AI today, even though I still use my senses to deal with it. Right. Interesting side, which I really think is a problem of privilege, is that the world of eight plus billion people today is not America and it's not the west, it's not Japan, okay? And, and you really have to start questioning how many humans in Africa will be given the opportunity to do this, okay? How many people in the ruler sides of India will be given an opportunity to do this, okay? And, and if you really add up the billions, six plus billion people in the world that are not part of this incredible advancement that you and I are aware of, okay, Would you integrate them in there at all? Would you even worry about their economic prosperity or their livelihood at all? So if manufacturing becomes so reinvented that, you know, no more sewing machines are needed in Bangladesh, okay? And Bangladesh starts to starve to death, would any. With any single entity globally goes like, hold on, hold on. Humanity is one entity. We care about the Bengalis. We're going to save them. Not going to happen. Do you realize that? And so the religious war. So I agree with you that some people will religiously choose not to integrate, but the majority of those who are not integrated are irrelevant to the, sadly irrelevant to the system, okay? They're basically an extra cost to the system to integrate. So you can easily see that this division will happen. Some will be integrated and very, very advanced. Some will be integrated and given access to software features that make them even more advanced. At a million dollars of subscription a month, okay? Which is nothing for the amount of intelligence you can get. And others will be told, go back to nature, start farming again, live a life where we don't really have to worry about you.
- [36:10]
Tom Bilyeu
And that's the division that's so interesting, man. Listen, I understand I am standing on the technological singularity. I cannot see over the event horizon. Everything I'm saying I say as a sci fi writer, not as somebody who actually thinks they see the future ever. Yeah, when I look at that future, I say already, like, just take emod. Most mission in life is to make sure that a Bengali farmer in rural parts of the world that they are getting access to AI because the intelligence matters so much. So number one, I have a base assumption that there are humans that are just so compelled by making sure that this is accessible to everybody that it will go as far as it can. Number two, I have the base assumption that AI will continue to do our bidding. If it doesn't, then everything that I paint just won't come to fruition. Number three, I assume that the level of intelligence that AI will achieve will allow them to capture the energy of the sun extremely efficiently. Therefore, energy costs drop to zero. I make the base assumption that we have enough access to material resources on Earth, and given that Elon Musk has already launched things to mine asteroids in the asteroid field, that access to resources is not going to be a problem. The costs of that, because labor will be free, because energy will be free, then resources will be free. That there, if those base assumptions are correct, it's higher risk to not spread the wealth than it is to spread the wealth. Because the last thing I want is to be in my sleep chamber running my simulation and a Bengalese farmer has found a way to find my body and kills me out of spite and eat it. So, yeah, like it. Well said. So again, I don't know that my base assumptions are going to end up being accurate, but if they are, we come back to the only thing I have to worry about is the moment of transition, the period transition.
- [38:15]
Mo Gawdat
I'm in total agreement. So. So the. This last comment sum sums it up perfectly. Okay, there. There is eventually a utopia where we all have our little headsets and we all live a thousand lives and we all fit properly in the simulation, if we so choose, right? But the transition, oh my God, the transition is really, really interesting. And the transition, the way you describe it when you're in your chamber and others are not, that's a very, very interesting moment to consider. Okay, you know it is. And interestingly, we don't have to wait for patient 1000 to imagine those scenarios and start doing something about them. I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head with your first question of how fast AI is going. Okay? It is not a question of if anymore. We know this is going to happen. We know that this level of technological advancement is going to happen. We know what intelligence can bring to the table. So why are we not sitting down to discuss this right now? Don't understand.
- [39:23]
Tom Bilyeu
Something I think you and I should discuss right now is, let's say you're 17, you've got some decisions to make. I just read a post. I think it was on Reddit. My producer gave it to me and it was somebody who was like, listen, I've spent the last, whatever, 30 years investing in being one of the greatest computer scientists in the world. I've been coding, I've worked at the Fang companies, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year at the height, and I just got let go. And the reason given was we've created so many more efficiencies with AI that this entire department is no longer needed.
- [40:02]
Mo Gawdat
Yeah.
- [40:04]
Tom Bilyeu
How should a 17 year old think about approaching the world? Given that you. I would say anyway that it's unwise to throw your hands up and just wait. At this point, you're going to have to take action. So what should they do?
- [40:22]
Mo Gawdat
Again, I'm not smart enough. I'll say that openly. I don't know what I should do. I think I should be very clear about that. In a world where so many moving parts, you can only hedge your bets if you want. Okay, so let's begin with your relationship with AI as a 17 year old. If I told you that you, you know, most people will say, do you want to be a lawyer? Do you want to be a doctor? Whatever it is that you're interested in. You want to be an AI, that right? You want to, you, you want to be the, you know, the best that uses AI in the next few months or years to generate, you know, graphic images or logos. Okay. Because there is a transition where for a while, where a human plus an AI will be better than an AI alone and you can be that human. So this is to me, the first immediate opportunity. Right. The second immediate opportunity, if you ask me, is really how can you prioritize intelligence? Not skills, not knowledge, not productivity, not money. Okay. The biggest asset that you will ever have is intelligence. And I will tell you openly, as an older man, I am less capable of learning all of the new tools that are that are coming in today than the younger people that I follow who, you know, will see manos come out of China. And then two days later, they know exactly how to use it for coding. And then Claude 3.06, was it? Or you know, the latest one comes out and they go, any day. Yeah, all right, yeah. So, you know, they know immediately what it is that, you know, they can use it for and how to program, use it for programming. And then Gemini comes out with the better one and I don't have that speed. But as a younger person today, I think the trick is to get yourself into that pace and let yourself flow at that pace. There is not a single tool that you will use for more than a month at a time. But the game is that you constantly become the one that is aware of the next and latest tool. Right, that, that, that's number two, number three. Which is, I have to say a very philosophical view of the world is that we have for a long time lived in a world where it is hard to, to know the truth. Okay. From one side because there is no real absolute truth. You know, you and I, who have a lot of respect for each other will have different points of view. By definition, we're probably both wrong, but at least not all the time. That one of us is right and the other is wrong, but that we're entering a world where we're completely mind manipulated. Every bit of info even intelligent people like you are going to be getting in the next few years are going to be coming from an AI, right? And so, and if that AI is motivated by an agenda of someone who's not very ethical, then you're going to get a lot of lies. And I think the top skill in today's world is to distinguish what's true from what's fake. Okay? And this is a skill that we had before the Internet and lost on the Internet, and it's now time to get back. But before the Internet, we, we would go and visit 16 books to establish a fact, okay? At the beginning of the Internet, for all of us who love the hyperlink more than they love anything in the world, you know, we would visit a hundred websites to establish a fact. But then when social media came out, we just believe whatever the influencer says because she has a cute butt, okay? And so, and so the truth is we've suddenly lost our ability to discern what's true and what's not. And I think now is the time to go back to that ability to debate everything, to ask for sources. When I was telling you today about the idea of the comparison of the Intel 404 and the latest microchips, I ran test mathematics with the AI to prove that its calculation was correct, that it is actually 26 to 27 doublings, and that this is the actual performance, and so on and so forth. So you have to establish that ability of not everything they tell me is true, right? And then finally, which I think can save all of us, is AI. Ethics is ethics in general, okay? And truly and honestly, you know, as we started the conversation, artificial intelligence is a, is an amazing power with no polarity, okay? Polarity doesn't come from intelligence. So you and I do not use our intelligence to, to make decisions. We use our ethical framework to make decisions as informed by our intelligence, right? And so, and so accordingly, we, we are at a time where the absolute scarce resource is going to become abundance and it's going to make everything else abundant, right? So, so we're going to have abundance of intelligence that's going to lead to abundance of everything. The question is what things is it going to be abundant weapons or abundant energy? Is it going to be abundant wealth concentration or abundant wealth distribution? And ethics are unfortunately rarely ever spoken about. Constantly talk about politics, we constantly talk about technology, we constantly talk about money, we constantly talk about capitalism and so on. China and whoever the real topic today is. If I told you anything that you want done will be done for free in a few years time, okay? The skill I need you to learn is what will you want done, okay? And if we get to the point where all of our decisions are not informed by what is good for me, even if it's bad for the other guy, because eventually that will lead to the scenario in your comic, comic book where we start a war between us, okay? If we can get to that ethical framework of let's agree what we need done that's good for every guy and gal, then I think we're in a good place. And I have to say, we messed up my generation. Your generation did nothing about it, okay? And it is the 17 year olds today that need to rise and say, I don't want that world that you're building for me. I want AI But I wanted to create a world of abundance for me.
- [47:08]
Tom Bilyeu
Talk to me. What do you think your generation did wrong that we didn't correct?
- [47:15]
Mo Gawdat
We, we, we got occupied with the promise of capitalism to the point where we set role models for you. So it is, I think it is absolutely my, my generation actually. So I think the turning point for all of us in tech was when Bill Gates became the richest man in the world. And, and all of us looked at that and said he's smart, but I'm smart too, okay? And I, and I can build stuff. And we ran okay. And in, in that process, I think that that hunger, that race for more is the, is the main result, is the main reason for the world we live in today, okay? The, the world we live in today has advanced massively because of that. We can't, you cannot deny the incredible contributions of science and computer science and technology and you know, industrial efficiencies and so on. You can't. But, but, but that. I call it systemic bias. Okay? You know, the easiest way to, to, to understand it is, you know, I told you I love cars. You can, you can take an engine and you know, tun and get 100 horsepowers more and then add a turbo and get another 100 horsepower and then another turbo and you know, supercharge it and you know, use nitro instead of fuel and so on until it, it melts, okay? And I think what is happening is that we are creating this constant turning of the economic cycles at a speed that is focused on enriching a few of us, that it is about to break, it's about to melt, okay? And AI can be our salvation because basically it means it doesn't have to melt, okay? We can reduce the cost of everything. And so accordingly, the debt goes away, inflation goes away. You know, it becomes easy for everyone to live. But the problem is the difference between the normal guy and the top guy is going to be that my car is green and their car is orange, okay? And that ego is the reason why we're resisting because the top guy still wants to have a car that nobody else has, okay? And I think that we will eventually end up in those utopian societies where we're all a little more equal, okay? But as you repeatedly said today, it's the path to get there that's going to be painful.
- [49:53]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. Speaking of that path, do you worry about AI? AI's ability to subtly manipulate us, even if it doesn't have ill intention?
- [50:07]
Mo Gawdat
So, so the, again, I mean, I don't know why I'm so focused on the wrong sides today. The, the AI so far has been learning from us and we're the best at manipulation, right? So, so, so the problem is it's reflecting back to us all of the, that we've put out there, okay? And you really have to understand that the media, whether mainstream or social media, is, I don't want to say lie, full of lies, but it is, it is highly biased to one side of the truth or the. Or to no truth, right? So, so, so, so, so that, so that basically, if, if, you know, if an AI reflects that back to you, don't blame the AI. Right? The beauty, however, is that with reasoning with mathematics, with synthetic training data, with all of that, of those models coming in, with offline models, with open source and so on. What is about to happen is that, you know, how you and I learned relativity is we took the work of Einstein and then we studied this and then we did that and we got it right. We built on a base of mathematics that we knew from our math teacher and so on. Now eventually, none of us, if you think about it, has created relativity. We took it from Einstein, but then Niels Bohr takes Einstein's work and says, no, this is missing this and that. I'm going to work on this. And other masters start to do other things. This is the Niels Bohr moment of, I mean, Niels Bohr is Not following Einstein, as big as impactful, probably more. But it's basically the moment where future AIs will learn from AIs, okay? And we have very little contribution from now on. And the challenge is the spiral going to continue to go down. Are they going to become more and more and more fake, fake, and that becomes the data that populates the Internet, so they learn to become more and more and more fake, okay. Or is there going to be a point at which where they will appreciate absolute truth? Right now we can influence that, but I don't think to a big extent. I think we can influence that with all of the data that we put out there, like this conversation, okay? With the humility to say we think these are possibilities, we do not know if they are. So that when the AI reads the, you know, the transcription of this, they know that they need to verify this. This is not a truth at all. Okay? But, but, but there is a. The next cycle. The next cycle doesn't have human data in the loop, okay? And I think that cycle is going to blow us away because truly the best scientists that ever created anything did not create it only with IQ or intelligence of some form. They created it with intelligence and former data. Okay? So you take the former data of everything that humanity learned, apply the current levels of intelligence and the endless megaflops of processing power and see what is about to come. We're not just. Which I think a lot of people miss when we discuss the immediate future of AI, we're not just advancing the systems or advancing the knowledge, okay? So every new code that is written by Claude, put out on the Internet, acts, or on GitHub, acts as a new code that informs Manus. And then every agent that does something with Manus becomes a behavior that is clever enough for every other business agent that's produced by Gemini to work, right? So as we recycle this, hopefully like with humans, we will recycle upwards. Okay?
- [54:06]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you think that AI is going to be able to understand the laws of physics?
- [54:14]
Mo Gawdat
I hope so. I hope so. I don't see why not, Tom. I really honestly don't see why not. Think about it this way. I started to read quantum physics when I was 8. And then at the time, for my generation, that was. There were no quantum physics for kids, basically, you know, But I couldn't understand the mathematics of it until maybe 12, 13.
- [54:41]
Tom Bilyeu
Jesus. Because I still can't. So you're doing great.
- [54:47]
Mo Gawdat
It's bypassed me for sure, eventually, right? But there are still humans out there that understand It. Okay. Yeah.
- [54:56]
Tom Bilyeu
But my assumption is that we don't understand it, so we, we have an approximation. So just as Newtonian physics wasn't accurate, but it was useful, Einsteinian physics are useful, but not accurate. And what I'm wondering is, will AI ever be able to go beyond pattern recognition of things that we already know and detect patterns in subatomic particles or whatever that allows it to intuit the actual laws of physics?
- [55:27]
Mo Gawdat
So the reason why I'm painting this picture is to say the better they become at mathematics, at least they will prove our math. Okay. And understand that for physics, you could be a theoretical physicist where you could actually see the word through the mathematics. And the experiments are, you know, another part of the physics, if you want. Okay. So, so when you, when you really think about it, could they become that mass genius that helps us? The trend says they will very soon. Right. You know, you can, you can look at things like, you know, Alphafold or the one from Microsoft that does material design. You know, it's incredible, really. It's better than any scientists in protein folding or in, you know, in material science. So it's going to happen. Now, will they have the abilities to have the instruments and the machinery to do the tests? And maybe they'll instruct us to do certain tests with certain observations? If intelligence is not a biological bound property, then I don't see why they wouldn't be as intelligent as they need to be to understand all of physics. I did a very interesting conversation. I had a very interesting conversation, actually published it on Substack this week, about consciousness, the nature of consciousness of AI and in my mind, the differentiating. And I could be completely wrong, but if I'm right, I beg people to help me out. I think the question of AI consciousness, which I don't believe they are yet, but if they ever become conscious at any point in time, I think the overlap, the actual scientific way of detecting that is the, you know, is if they can collapse the wave function of something that's in superposition. Right. Because, you know, so if you, if you. I was having the conversation with my AI about the delayed choice experiment, you know, the eraser test. Basically, what is it called? The delayed choice experiment, where basically you have particles go through the double slit and you capture the result on a camera or a detector of some sort, but you don't. You delay the choice of will you look at it or not, will you observe it or not? Okay. And if you, if you don't observe it, it's a, it's an Interfere an interference pattern. If you do observe it, it collapses. It's crazy, right? But. But here's the interesting thing. When the camera observed it or the detector observed it, which doesn't have any consciousness, in actually didn't collapse the way the wave function. Okay, so the question is, can we ask AI to observe it? Yeah, can we ask AI to observe it? Right. And the moment where when AI observe it, it collapses the wave function. That means they have some form of intelligence. Sorry.
- [58:31]
Tom Bilyeu
What an interesting way to think about that. That's crazy. That is a test.
- [58:39]
Mo Gawdat
So I'm looking among my physicist friends to find someone that can help us run that test, which I think will come out negative for today. They are not conscious, but I think we need to keep running it until they're not a detector. They're not a camera anymore, but they have some form of conscious awareness.
- [59:04]
Tom Bilyeu
Wow, that has hit me very hard. I need to think about that. Look at that. Mo spending time with you. Every time gets more incredible. I love that. Thank you so much for taking the time. Where can people follow along with you?
- [59:20]
Mo Gawdat
First of all, thank you for listening to all of my crap today. I actually never speak about those things publicly, so I love this. I hope that people understand that I'm not right. I'm just sharing with passion what I believe needs to be attended to. And I am absolutely certain that I could be wrong on all of that. I share all that I shared. But I think the main topic is we need to start paying attention. We need the ones that are smarter than me to find the right answers, because this is moving too fast. Where people can find me. Mowdat.com I'm on Instagram. It's mogoudat. And on YouTube, I think it's mogaudet official. Mo Gaudet official or something like that. But if you search for mogaudet, I'm. You know, as I told you before we started the conversation, I tend to be on other people's platforms a lot more than I'm on mine. And, yeah, you know, on my substack, if you want to read alive, go to mogaodat.substack.com and give me feedback on my writing, and it would be wonderful. And, yeah, thank you for having me. This was intense.
- [60:32]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, brother, thank you. I really do appreciate it. It was wonderful. Everybody out there, if you're not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.