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Former Google Chief Decision Scientist Cassie Kozyrkov on AI, Decisions, and Human Responsibility - Unblinded with Sean Callagy | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Former Google Chief Decision Scientist Cassie Kozyrkov on AI, Decisions, and Human Responsibility

Unblinded with Sean Callagy

Tue Jan 13 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: Unblinded with Sean Callagy

Episode: Former Google Chief Decision Scientist Cassie Kozyrkov on AI, Decisions, and Human Responsibility
Date: January 13, 2026
Host: Sean Callagy
Guest: Cassie Kozyrkov, Former Chief Decision Scientist, Google

Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Sean Callagy hosts Cassie Kozyrkov—former Google Chief Decision Scientist—for a wide-ranging, deeply insightful conversation about artificial intelligence, the nature of human decision-making, individual agency, and the responsibility that comes with technological power. From Cassie’s childhood obsession with data to her philosophy on teaching people to make wiser “wishes” in the age of AI, the discussion is both practical and philosophical—challenging prevailing narratives about AI and encouraging listeners to embrace a future where technology amplifies, not replaces, the best of human judgment.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Cassie’s Origin Story: A Passion for Data and Decisions

Childhood Love of Data: As early as age 8 or 9, Cassie was captivated by the logic and clarity of spreadsheets, using them for cataloging her gemstone collection.
- “When I was about eight or nine years old, I discovered the most beautiful thing in the universe. Spreadsheets.” (00:00, 04:07)
Early Immersion: At 11, she moved on to databases. By 15, she entered university in South Africa, pursuing economics and multiple forms of statistics at once, driven by the urge to understand and optimize choices in a world of scarcity.
- “I went to college when I was 15…studying economics, mathematical statistics and applied statistics. These two statistics were in different departments…never occurred to anyone that someone would want to study both of them.” (05:02-07:30)
Discovery of Decision Science: While at the University of Chicago, Cassie became obsessed with the science of decision-making and was frustrated that no one discipline unified all its relevant aspects.
- “What this mishmash was all about was decision making. And there was no discipline that would actually teach you.” (14:02)

The Human Dimension of AI

AI Is a Decision System—Not Autonomous: Cassie emphasizes that AI is the product of human decisions and priorities; there is no “autonomy” that absolves humans of responsibility.
- “AI is not autonomous in the sense that humans can wash their hands of responsibility for it.” (00:36, 18:13)
- “When you’ve been around everything of AI, you realize that it is all humans all the way through. It is very human.” (18:13)
The Genie Analogy: She likens AI to a genie, warning that every “wish” story is about the nature of the wisher, not the genie itself, and warns against unskilled wishers wielding rapidly scaling tools:
- “Every single story is never about the genie. It is about the unskilled wisher…knowing what you want, that's the hardest thing, isn’t it?” (00:23, 34:41)
The Limits of Data: Cassie debunks the myth of data as an infallible oracle, comparing datasets to human-made books that are subject to bias and selection.
- “We pronounce data like it’s got a capital D. It doesn’t. It deserves no respect. None. Data is just memory. It’s just what we chose to write down.” (23:29)

Empowering Human Agency in an AI World

Teaching ‘Wishing’ Skills: Cassie sees her personal mission as preparing people to make wise, responsible choices when AI gives them unprecedented power and leverage.
- “My why is I am teaching the wishers.” (38:55)
Agency Over Abdication: She warns that presenting AI as an “autonomous” entity threatens human agency and judgment:
- “The lie that AI is autonomous…is a poisonous lie. Somewhere in any scaling technology there are humans.” (48:55)
Decision Responsibility: For trivial choices (such as which jeans to buy), delegating to AI is fine; but for moral decisions—love, career, medicine—humans must remain engaged and responsible.
- “I don't want to see swathes of humanity all…doing the same thing that ChatGPT told them to do. I want us to keep thinking, I want us to keep creating, I want us to keep being beautiful.” (53:09)

The Power and Pitfalls of Personalization

Rise of Personalization: AI brings the cost of personalization down, allowing individuals to have experiences tailored to their preferences.
- “In the digital space, the cost of personalization is going down…you could have futures like that. How fun. How interesting, right?” (65:58)
Coordination Challenges: With more personalization comes complexity—a world of unique requests and solutions, making coordination (and maintaining the human touch/context) ever more critical.
Advice and Judgment: While AI can abundantly generate advice, human judgment is still needed to discern and apply it wisely.
- “Now this new thing, the automation of language, it makes advice cheap and abundant where context makes things better, not worse.” (65:58)

The Future of Work and Society in an AI Era

Short-term Disruptions vs. Long-term Potential: Cassie predicts a temporary period where companies misuse AI to cut costs and automate away jobs, but expects the real opportunity is in amplifying human creativity and context.
Job Impact: While certain tasks will be automated, especially those that are routine or context-light, she emphasizes the irreplaceable value of human context and collaboration:
- “The people that you have…are the people who carry the context…you’re going to need these people to carry that context with you.” (65:58)
Education and Growth: She foresees education shifting from standardized basics to highly personalized journeys, with technology enabling both teachers and students to focus on unique interests and strengths.

Legacy and Ethical Imperatives

Cassie’s Legacy: She wants to be remembered for enabling high-impact individuals to wield their power responsibly and thoughtfully, focusing particularly on preventing unintentional harm arising from lack of skill and context.
- “I want the people who have the biggest ability to impact the world to be better at it…So much bad can come from very good intentions and no skills.” (48:55)
Human Flourishing: She envisions a future where humans use AI to drop drudgery and focus on thinking, creating, and flourishing—without surrendering agency.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Childhood Curiosity & Data
“I discovered the most beautiful thing in the universe. Spreadsheets.” — Cassie (00:00, 04:07)
On Interdisciplinary Learning
“What job do you think you’re trying to get?...Why is there this bit from psychology and this bit from neuroscience…and what is this mishmash?...What this mishmash was all about was decision making.” — Cassie (14:02)
On Decision Science as a Unifying Thread
“If you get better at decision making, that compounds over time.” — Cassie (13:19)
On AI Responsibility
“AI is not autonomous in the sense that humans can wash their hands of responsibility for it.” — Cassie (00:36, 18:13)
On the Genie Analogy
“Every single story is never about the genie. It is about the unskilled wisher.” — Cassie (00:23, 34:41)
On Delegation vs. Judgment
“If information isn’t connected to action, does it matter?” — Cassie (00:42) “Knowing what you want, that’s the hardest thing, isn’t it?” — Cassie (00:23, 32:08)
AI as an Amplifier, Not a Replacement
“It is all humans all the way through. It is very human…it is the decisions that people make that shapes what these systems do.” — Cassie (18:13)
On the Perils of Data Worship
“We pronounce data like it’s got a capital D. It doesn’t. It deserves no respect. None.” — Cassie (23:29)
On the Purpose of Her Work
“My why is I am teaching the wishers.” — Cassie (38:55)
On Ceding Agency to AI
“I don't want to see swathes of humanity all…doing the same thing that ChatGPT told them to do. I want us to keep thinking, I want us to keep creating, I want us to keep being beautiful.” — Cassie (53:09)
On the Future of Personalization
“Imagine a future where you are on that menu and…all the menus on 3x speed and give me fun facts about dolphins while I wait…” — Cassie (65:58)
Three-Word Headline for Listeners
“Reach for more.” — Cassie (78:38)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Cassie's childhood fascination with spreadsheets and data | | 02:32 | Comparing South African/American communication styles | | 05:02 | Family background; early academic journey | | 14:02 | Frustration with lack of unified decision-making discipline | | 18:13 | What AI really is: not autonomous, all human decisions | | 23:29 | Data is fallible, subject to human selection and bias | | 34:41 | The genie-wisher analogy and mission of making wishers skilled | | 38:55 | "My why is I am teaching the wishers" | | 48:55 | Legacy: preventing unintentional harm and preserving agency | | 53:09 | On ceding agency to AI and promoting thoughtful use of judgment | | 65:58 | Future predictions: personalization, coordination challenges | | 78:38 | "Reach for more" — Cassie's final three-word headline |

Final Thoughts

Tone and Language:
Throughout, Cassie is humorous, direct, and precise, using memorable metaphors (genies, elephants, magic wishes), crystal-clear analogies, and a refreshing combination of humility and conviction. Sean echoes admiration and validation, constantly connecting Cassie's insights to his own educational, entrepreneurial, and training experiences.

Bottom Line:
The episode is a masterclass in reframing the conversation on AI: it’s not just about smarter machines, but about cultivating wiser, more responsible humans who remain firmly in the driver’s seat—master wishers, not just masters of technology.

[End of Summary]

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Transcript

Cassie Kozakov (0:00)

Well, when I was about eight or nine years old, I discovered the most beautiful thing in the universe. Spreadsheets. I had to go and go get full immersion in the decision disciplines. I went to college when I was 15. I had actually growing up where I did, I didn't realize how big the world was.

Sean (0:20)

And she's way smarter than me by, like a million x.

Cassie Kozakov (0:23)

Every single story is never about the genie. It is about the unskilled wisher knowing what you want. That's the hardest thing, isn't it?

Sean (0:30)

So when they're making their genie wishes pre AI in the world of unblinded, that was our matrix or framework.

Cassie Kozakov (0:36)

AI not autonomous in the sense that humans can wash their hands of responsibility for it.

Sean (0:42)

Huh.

Cassie Kozakov (0:42)

If a data point falls in a forest, does anybody care? And if information isn't connected to action, does it matter? Every company now is saying it's an AI company. And the leadership of these companies, do they know what they're doing? If not. Oh, dear God, yes.

Sean (0:58)

But so what a. Welcome to the stage, the unblinded space, none other than Cassie Kozakov. Let's welcome Cassie. On your feet. Come on. I said Cassie.

Cassie Kozakov (1:15)

I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath Scared to rock the boat and make.

Sean (1:20)

Cassie. You're from South Africa.

Cassie Kozakov (1:23)

How fun is that?

Sean (1:25)

Is it all about zebras and giraffes? No, no. We had a joke about that. And I'm like, I do. I know that it's not all about zebras and giraffes.

Cassie Kozakov (1:32)

Yeah, well, well, well, well. Zebras and giraff. But don't forget the ostriches, which I have ridden an ostrich, which is. Whoa.

Sean (1:40)

Let's hear for that.

Cassie Kozakov (1:41)

Right? It turns out, you know how when you cover the cage of your bird, it's like nighttime, go to sleep. So you have this little bag that you cover the head with. That's your way to stop. Now, you all know how to ride an ostrich. That was your morning lesson. You didn't expect.

Cassie Kozakov (5:02)

Yeah. So my father is from Moldova. My parents both Soviet physicists, as one does. Absolutely. Normal South African household to Soviet physicists and their strange kid who likes spreadsheets. And I'm not sure, actually, that they particularly encouraged this strangeness. They were like, read some fantasy books and go play outside. And I'm like, but no, the computer compels me. I went to college when I was 15 to Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, as it was called then. Now it's just Nelson Mandela University. They realized that there was a better way to name that. And I had actually growing up where I did, I didn't realize how big the world was, maybe because I was too set in my spreadsheets by this time, you can imagine 15 or so. I'm now collecting data because it's beautiful, folks. It's beautiful. I'm collecting data on all kinds of biometric things about myself, how much I slept and who did I talk to today and what did I study. I've got data going back really far, which just tells you I really was quite a weird kid. But we were a little behind the US in our Internet connectivity, and my household was behind as well. Even in my freshman year, when I would go to the computer lab which was theoretically connected to the Internet, I'd have to go at 4am just to get my homepage for my email to load, right? So that's where it's a little different now, connectivity wise. And the town that I grew up in, the suburb, the same kindergarten fed the same elementary school, which fed the same high school, which fed the same university. And you kind of had choices with respect to your higher education. And they were three choices. Choice number one is you don't go. Choice number two is you go to the technical college part of the university system. Or choice number three is you go to the university part of the university system. That's it. Those are your three choices. So there I am, I'm 17 years old. I'm studying economics, mathematical statistics and applied statistics. These two statistics were in different departments. They had their courses at the same time because it never occurred to anyone that someone would want to study both of them. So I always had an alibi. If the class was boring, I'd be like, I'm going next door. And then I'd be like, oh, I'm going back next door. I'd run between these two things. I had to be in two places at once, like Hermione and Harry Potter. But there I am in my economics class, 17. And the professor says, wait, I'm sorry.

Cassie Kozakov (18:13)

When you've been around everything of AI, you realize that it is all humans all the way through. It is very human. It is both a tool for decision making, which you can use wisely and you can use less wisely and you can use completely stupidly if you insist. But it is also the product of decisions. And that is why your different tools that you might come across out there, why they behave so differently. Not because one of them is wrong and you know, it's a wrong type of AI and that's the winner and the others are the losers, but because it is the decisions that people make that shapes what these systems do. And when we say autonomous, when I teach my MBA students about autonomous systems, and because it's MBAs, we have to get into real talk and we have to get into difficult talk, and we have to say the uncomfortable things. And so I say to them, okay, those of you who are made very uncomfortable, trigger warning, tune out, go away for five minutes. The rest of you, click. I show them a landmine and I ask them, how is this different from an AI system in terms of the decision making? How is it different? Does it make decisions? Well, it responds to stimuli, it responds to inputs, it collects data in some sense in terms of pressure. And it is also a system whose effect is fairly complex relative to the understanding of whoever put it in the ground. Like, they didn't know what was going to happen and why and how it was going to be triggered. But still, though. So it has a lingering effect. It has a potentially powerful effect. Complex, hard to predict. But it's not autonomous in the sense that humans can wash their hands of responsibility for it. And it's not autonomous in the sense that no human actually made it, thought it was a good idea to create them, thought it was a good idea to put it in the ground. Right. It is still a thing of human responsibility. So when we build these systems, when we integrate these systems, we have to be careful and wise about how we do that. All of it is human decisions. There are good ways and there are bad ways. You could build systems with safety nets. You could build them without safety nets. That's an important difference. And it's not a difference of the mathematics of on the inside. It's a difference in how we lead. So there are decision questions all the way through these technologies, and these technologies will affect how we make decisions on the other side.

Cassie Kozakov (23:29)

Yeah, the puny human brain. So how do we write down even the formula for what is a cat? But you know what we do have? The Internet's made of cats examples. Photograph after photograph after photograph. Millions of them, billions of them. And so we can use those examples and we can pull out patterns in them and turn that into the code that the computer is going to follow without anybody writing the explicit instructions. And that's Your older version of AI, right? Your pre ChatGPT version of AI, that mostly it's enterprises. It's not like, you know, regular person's going to wake up one day and be like, I need to get 5 million photographs of cats and then I need to go and pull some. Extract some patterns. Right? That's your. That's Google. And if you use Google Photos, any Google Photos fans, A little bit. Right. I don't know if you remember because I like data and probably should have been a librarian or a monk in the medieval times, but I grew up with computers, so I remember labeling my photographs because I like to keep my data in order. And so if I want to quickly find my cats, I would have some kind of thing in the file name. Do you remember how painful that is? Does anyone still do that? Because it's okay to admit it if you do. But I am here to tell you that that is a solved problem now. And you can just upload it to Google Photos and then search cat and it pops up. All the ones with cats, right? That's using this technology. And this is not a 2021 and further thing. This has been around for many years before that. Right. But it's big companies solving big company things using this concept. Now, a quick thing that I want to get everybody ready here to understand. Using data for stuff. We pronounce data like it's got a capital D. It doesn't. It deserves no respect. None. Data is just memory. It's just what we chose to write down. It's writing and you hear people. You know, if someone said to you, if it's written in a book, it must be true, what would you say to them? Yeah, you would laugh. And yet the same person who laughs, turns around and goes, it's in the data. Data sets are like books, they're like textbooks. Some human makes them. Some human decides, this is important to keep and this is not important to keep. And so it's very, very subjective. What goes in, what doesn't. Yeah. And by the way, AI Bias, if you've heard of that, I'll give you the, what I call the Hemingway lecture. Are you familiar with the saddest short story in the English language?

Cassie Kozakov (26:24)

Sad. And unless you're Walmart and then you're like, it's a good thing I'm selling you shoes. They've never been worn. But similarly sad short story in six words about AI bias. AI bias. Inappropriate examples, never examined. Someone put in some garbage data and now we built systems patterns, whatever, automating based on it. Okay, but we're still in the 2010s here. We need to move towards the future. What if we could take this concept of examples and turning them into recipes for machines to follow and we could apply that to a very specific application. We've got one. We've talked about computer vision, figuring out whether there's cats in your photos or automated passport controlled, you match your passport photo or whatever else. What if the thing that we solve is the universal interface for Human collaboration? Do we know what that's called? It has one word. What's the Universal interface for Human Collaboration? Language. I love it. Language. Language. If we have no language, and language can be gestures and language can be pictures and language can be words, but if we have no language, we are not going to be able to collaborate with one another, nor are we going to be able to collaborate with machines. But if we're able to make machines understand our language, then we, without learning anything extra, just using our mother tongue, can make ourselves understood to machines. And we can ask for weird things. Think about it. Whatever occurs, if we were like, hey Chatgpt, give me poem about bananas in the style of Shakespeare, we can ask. Whereas before, when we think about traditional programming. So imagine the year is 1995. Anybody here liked playing Minesweeper in 1995? Yes. Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah, me too. Now it's 1995 and you are not computer programmers. You don't know how to program. And you see this Minesweeper thing and you're like, mines. I like the game, but Mines are violent. I want a game called Heartsweeper and I don't like the grid the way that it is. I want it to be a 15 by 15 grid. And you want to change some rules around. What would it take for you to actually make the attempt to get your thing? No, no, but you, you, you forget language for a moment. You want Heart Sweeper, not Minesweeper. It's 1995. You insist that the game you want to play is called Heartsweeper, but you have never programmed a gosh darn thing. What are you going to do? You suffer. Right? So either you're going to find a programmer and pay them. Yes, Right. This one option. Good delegate, I love it. Or you become the programmer. What does that take? Several years of learning how to speak an unnatural language. It is not natural, these things, these Cs and Pythons and assembly and Whatever else, it's not natural. And you have to be some kind of masochist like me to think it's fun to do this. It's fun. Speaking of Harry Potter, I've always thought programming was a little bit like, like magic spells, like Abracadabra. But you first have to learn the language in Guardium Leviosa, you have to learn these funny words. And after a while, after seven years in wizarding school, you can make yourself a custom Minesweeper app, can't you? But today you go into ChatGPT, Claude, whichever one of these tools and now what does it take in order to make the att. To make the attempt? You just say what you want. Minesweeper app 15 by 15 instead of minds, use hearts. If you run that, I promise you under five times, under five tries, maybe on your first try, like me, you are going to get a playable heart sweeper app. Playable. What's the worst thing that's going to happen? You get nothing back. But how much did it cost you to try? Zero. Nothing. Because you already speak the language. It's your mother tongue. 1995, you got to learn some books upon books upon books about ugly, unnatural languages. Today, whatever you want, you just speak it. And the worst thing that's going to happen is you get nothing back. So what do you need? You need the courage to try and the vision to know what you want. There is no other thing. And if you still think of technology as something that is difficult and fiddly, because I get it, technology abused us for a long time. It was not lovable. There were a lot of steps to learning it. You still expect that you have to take courses and textbooks and all that. Then you still think this AI thing, this new one, which is the automation of language, put in all of your hands this new thing. It's probably something difficult, let's leave it for somebody else to deal with. Whereas all you need to do is know what you want and speak what you want. But you know what, knowing what you want, that's the hardest thing, isn't.

Sean (32:09)

Let's hear for Cassie. We're on this. So, Cassie, so you couldn't make up what's happening because everything you are sharing is precisely what we share, except it's coming from your voice, your mastery, your perspective. SERP Partners Elite do you agree? At levels that are actually eerie and frightening. So is it not Shannon? Yes. So I want you to, I invite you to become present to the depth of these people listening and the energy you're experiencing for me and everyone is gratitude and absolute agreement. Because you're literally framing the foundation of everything we talked about for what we're doing here. Pretty AI and now what we're doing to be enhanced by AI. Because what we say is since the dawn of humanity, people have struggled with two questions. Why am I here? And how do I fulfill my ultimate mission, vision and purpose. And with AI, we have the ability clearly and at exponential levels to effectuate the second, which is how do I fulfill my ultimate mission, vision, purpose and dare I say, I think with what we're building, it is extremely simple to help people discern why we're here. Because we always say that people are here for more money and less time, with more magic. And dare I also say that I think you've got money and time taken care of with the incredible things you've done. So now part of your magic is you teach MBA students. Part of your magic is you speak and enlighten and impact people. And what I'm also curious about, and I still want to get to the back half of your answer, but it's just like so present, is what's the ultimate why for Cassie, as you decided today, like you're speaking, I am very clear that you, at least I believe I'm clear that it wouldn't be for the money. I am very clear that you have endless choices of what you could do for massive abundance with your genius. You teach MBA program, I'm sure that's not for the money either. You teach ethical AI, like what's the why behind all this for you? And please feel free to step into that or continue to go with it.

Cassie Kozakov (34:41)

No, no, I'm happy to because we're almost there, aren't we? See, 18 year old me back at the University of Chicago was operating in a world where individual things are kept individual, right? The individuals themselves have some opportunity for impact, but it's on human scale. And then when we have these automation tools that are able to scale ourselves up a lot, when we increase ourselves with technology, just what this technology allows now gives us unprecedented opportunities to impact the world. Opportunities at the scales reserved centuries ago for the likes of kings and popes and such. Right now, individuals can, with technology, scale themselves. When we scale ourselves with technology, we also make it easier, unfortunately, to step on the people around us. And so if it's just you steering your life a little bit better, you know, and getting some compounding value from better decision making, you know, that's cute and that's okay, but what if your decisions actually have a lot of impact on the world? Well, then it's time to be much more thoughtful and much more careful, much more responsible about how you go about things. And AI, you see, AI in this equation, what Silicon Valley wants you to hear about all the time, is essentially a proliferation of different kind of magic, magic genies. Why magic genies? Because there's very good money in being able to say, we don't know what your problem is, but here's the solution in advance, right? It's going to help you. We don't know what you're going to use it for, but here you go. It's probably what you need, right? Pretty awesome. That's kind of like a genie. Here's the genie. We don't know what you're going to wish for, but you know your wish can be granted. Now Silicon Valley is talking all about the better, better, better wishers. Sorry, the better, better, better genies. I get ahead of myself. The better, better genies. Stronger, better genies. But I know, I'm painfully aware of what every genie story, or Midas and his magic touch, or the goldfish that grants wishes. Every single story is never about the genie. It is about the unskilled wisher. That's what it's about. And the unskilled wisher put on steroids and able to impact the world like never before. That is a scary thing. I want that wisher to be skilled. And so while all the folks who are classic AI folks are all about their genies and you know, to be allowed in the same room as them, I have to be able to arm wrestle them with as much knowledge about genies as they have. See those guns? But what I have always been about since I understood that it's our decisions that are important, I was always about how do I make sure that the wishers are better, that the wishers are prepared for the responsibility that they're about to get. See, I don't want people to be faced with essentially the equivalent of magic lamp arrives on your desk and in that moment you're like, huh? There are some things I should have learned to get to this point, because we're getting there. Digitally speaking. In the digital sphere, the genies are only getting better. But I don't see enough being put into how good the wishers are going to be. Who is teaching the wishers? So my why is I am teaching the wishers.

Sean (38:55)

And if in this room you're insert or elite and you see this as learning to choose your wishes, wisely say yes. So the alignment is frightening, it's inspiring, it's powerful. And this is a room we call this integrity based human influence. You are, you are, you're not preaching, you are sharing wisdom to people who are in full alignment with the wisdom you are sharing. Because we say that full, full yes, yes, we say that integrity is transparency to all relevant truth and what the people certainly in the front of the room, in the back room heard when you say you're not a great marketer. We believe that you are and could be one of the most masterful marketers on earth. Because in our version of marketing it is all about truth. Which is why in that room I went through Callie with Cassie and said if you think with your mastery that this isn't potentially a thing, tell me now because I don't want to be lying to anyone. And we had a positive interaction on that topic. And I'm not going to quote her in any different ways, but I will continue to say the things that I am saying. Because everything for us about marketing is full transparency to the relevant truth. That you always seek to add more value than you will receive and that the thing you say works to do that thing is what it does. Which I could speak 10,000 miles per hour and all this human masterful genius is going to do is receive it all. But that's the folks that you're speaking with, which is not common, not normal. And I'll also please Savion Cassie, which you may not know. I don't make. I do not make more than 0.001% of my income from the unblinded platform. So this is a mission for me. It is a for profit enterprise. But this is designed to create an army of people that in a slightly distinct language from what you're sharing, Cassie, are doing exactly what you're saying. And we believe that we are in the arms race to have the greatest influence over the future of where this goes. And people in our certification program have said that we will become the chief chief justice officers of the planet and create a mechanism of discernment of integrity and truth unlike anything the world has ever seen. To crush and eliminate bureaucracy, oppression, tyranny and also just ignorance. Because exactly what you're saying that you experienced at the University of Chicago. Here was my challenge. I went to Columbia University and Ivy League school. I wouldn't have gotten in without baseball. I'm smart, you know, we joke and have fun. I'm a smart person, not nearly as smart as you. And iq my practical Learning has become really at a revolutionary speed of my discernment and learning capabilities. Still not at yours, but a very high level of processing. I learned how to learn later in life after Columbia, but I took economics at Columbia, as you did at an even better economics program at the University of Chicago. And I graduated top honors from my law school class. And nowhere did I ever learn anything that you didn't learn and how to figure out for yourself in all these disconnected disciplines of decision making. Because I arrived less precisely later at your same decision making because I had a gun to my head called blindness. And I did not want to go blind to be broke. And my mom pushed a hot dog cart in Jersey City when I was a baby and we didn't have resources and everybody in my family with my genetic eye disease was blind and broke and the vast majority were also alcoholics. So this same discernment mechanism that you were blessed with, I was blessed with in realizing that there had to be a formula in a way that I could avoid. I could find the codification, the pattern of not blind, not broke, not alcoholic, having financial abundance to take care of a family. So what I committed to create was the first and only complete holistic, diagnostic, dynamic, interconnected actualization tool for all of human. Now I say AI business and mission acceleration on planet Earth. Because everywhere I looked, from I live university to MBA program to psychology to my literature, humanities books that we read, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Homer, all of it, I couldn't find it. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, I found tips, think and grow rich, the personal development landscape, all of it, I couldn't find it. And so it is. And these folks heard. We had David Maisel, the creator of Marvel, the founder of Marvel Studios, creator of the Marvel Cinematic Universe universe. Yesterday in that seat we had Charlie Sheen, that's it, yesterday. And I said David Maisel, I cannot possibly think we will be exceeded right in what that was for me and my heart and my soul, my being. And I mean this with all of my heart and like Ralph Macchio, being here later today is going to be mind blowing. Absolutely incredible and inspirational, all of it. But like to hear it coming from a human from another continent who is has studied in disciplines that are different than mine and most of you in this room, it is so inspiring, it is so validating, it is so foundation moving forward because every single person in this room agrees with every word you said. Because all you're speaking is the absolute mathematical and human truth in every word you said. If you're present that say yes and so it's so exciting. And I am for no other reason in this room just to know that I'm not and we're not crazy. Because every single word, the genie dynamic, every word you're saying is exactly what the people in this room believe and I believe. And I want to learn more. Learn more from you. This room wants to learn more from you. So it is. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it is unbelievable. And to make sure that is worth valuable for you. So like sight unseen, we are in this world that we're in. I'm not asking on stage and putting on a comfortable position, but we don't like negotiate here, so we don't pretend we're not interested. We teach Integra scarcity, not fake scarcity. So with absolute precision, I can't wait to continue these conversations and go later. And you could rest assured that I will do everything in my power to make sure that we are continuing to learn from this genius as we go forward. Because there's so much from the ethics, the practical execution of all of it. And we are present to the conversation. Now, some of these people in this room are brand new here, so they wouldn't have any idea of the synchronicities of which we speak. Right. So thank you. Thank you and I'm happy to go any way you want. But two different things that I still would love to just truly learn more about about you, Cassie. And your heart, mind, soul is in the end, if you had the privilege of knowing 100 years from now, I hope, 1,000 years from now, I hope, because I think the world would be a far, far greater place if you live another thousand years would be. What would you want your. If you consider your legacy to be, even if it was in your heart, what you would know or mind that people relate to language very differently. We're very clear in that we speak up this very much. So you may not relate to legacy, but whatever translation of that for you where, hey, this is what my. This is why I do what I do. This is my heart imprint. Yes. I want ethics to be better. AI like clear. You answer that. Thank you. But in the end, if you are not inhibited by any sense of. If you could free yourself from that inhibition of any sense of feeling like maybe you're saying something that may make you seem overly not humble and overly certain about your capabilities. If in the secret recesses of your heart and mind, if you feel comfortable and safe as far as I'm saying it, what would you hope that the end of your journey in this lifetime would be that you would have imprinted and caused if you could truly have it all your way at the greatest degree of possibility. I'd love if you feel comfortable going into that a bit. And then still this sort of predictive modeling of this shifting world of. We are on the cutting edge of legal AI. I know that because we've talked to the top companies. They don't have. We have. And we've taken things that took us 300 hours to do and that take us three hours. And so we're in very many diverse applications of the space using what we. Mastering how to do and applying it through the prism of. But just that, you know, that would be a secondary curiosity of what you would see as some of these potential displacements where you think they might be exaggerated. You know, some people say that legal jobs, and these aren't just all lawyers, right? These are legal accounting, financial, real estate, doctors and brain surgeons in this room. But what you might see is some of those displacements where they are maybe minimized, maybe they're exaggerated. That would be one area I'd love to still explore. And this other area of truly what your greatest heart, dream desires are.

Cassie Kozakov (48:55)

Take them all down and then check them all off. My block and bridge is just like, I'll. There's no block and bridge. I'll just land the plane eventually. Okay, so let's start with what I hope to achieve. One is I want the people who have the biggest ability to impact the world to be better at it. Now, here's a very honest thing I'm going to say. There are many people whose life's work will be in preventing intentional harm. And I fully support, applaud and adore those efforts. I'm very interested myself in unintentional harm. Right. So much bad can come from very good intentions and no skills. When you have vast leverage, when you have high impact and you're a doofus, essentially from the previous century and you are put in charge of enormous resources, enormous projects, and all of it is going technological. Every company now is saying it's an AI company. And the leadership of these companies, do they know what they're doing if not, oh dear God, pardon my Shakespeare. It really upsets me to think that we still have people who are in charge of, without realizing that they're in charge of shaping vast changes in this world and they're absentees, they're not participating, they're just letting things slip into whatever default. I want to see steering. I don't like this Ma. No hands, watch me let go of the steering wheel attitude. So to the extent that I can reach leaders who are in the position to be smart wishers or not, I want to reach them, right? That's one. Number two is I want to protect human agency because the lie that AI is autonomous, that it's an entity, that it makes decisions for us, is a lie. And it is a poisonous lie that makes life worse, not better. Somewhere in any scaling technology there are humans and if you say for, let's say, an unimportant decision, we shouldn't be putting too much effort in anyway, like for me choosing jeans. What style of jeans? I don't know, I don't care. ChatGPT what's fashionable right now? I have to know what and who I'm delegating that decision to, right? Those are humans. Those are humans who figured out which data, which objectives. There's a whole bunch of human stuff in there that I am delegating my decisions to. And when it's genes, fine. But when it's medical decisions, when it's love, when it's career, when it's bigger things, if we begin to treat these systems like all knowing oracles, we are giving away our human agency. Whereas if we instead use these as tools, tools to make ourselves better, but we keep human judgment because there is no way to automate human judgment. We all judge and discern differently and it matters that we understand that we are still responsible. We take that responsibility and we use these beautiful tools when they serve us and we drop them when they don't and we keep our human agency. I don't want to see swathes of humanity all, you know, doing the same thing that ChatGPT told them to do. I want us to keep thinking, I want us to keep creating, I want us to keep being beautiful. And I see these tools as having such potential to elevate every single one of us.

Sean (54:02)

May I share just a quick comment on that? So alignment only increases. And what could be present in the recesses of Cassie's nervous system is where something that she's going to say is going to be. Not that she's concerned about it because this is her ethics and integrity, but only concerned potentially about is that going to be something offensive or harmful towards us. And it is remarkable that every single thing you say keeps being completely in alignment. So one of the things that we are working on creating is not a universal catch. All these fine folks up front are working with what we call our interview agents, which are getting to know them and their traumas, their life, their being, who they are, what they are, what matters to them. Because what we always say is whether somebody believes that they are making the money they want to be making because they live at Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, which is a homeless area where people and some people went in 1967 for the summer of Love in a utopian possibility and never came back and have lived in that park with their dogs for decades. Or somebody is as wealthy as Oprah Winfrey or exponentially more wealthy like an Elon Musk. We believe that people making decisions about their financial abundance, their time, freedom and when they invest that is a completely absolute individualized decision. So we say that people want more money and less time, with more magic until they have the amount of money they're comfortable with. And for some people that would be having a enough money to eat and feed their dog at Haight Ashbury. And for some people it's the next yacht in the Monaco Yacht Club. I've been to both places and for some people it's having the 450 foot yacht, the Monaco Yacht Club, even though there isn't one yet, at least the last time I was there and what were about is people making that decision as the most masterful, healthy, individualized decision maker, which would include the decision of knowing what they would have to sacrifice. So when they're making their genie wishes, pre AI in the world of unblinded, that was our matrix, our framework. So just a quick example, and this is for all new people as well as you guys. Some people don't know these pieces. So when I began to think about what my future looked like, I began to think about the fact that I didn't want to be blind and be broke. And then I figured out, wow, you could not be blind and broke really easily. And I discern this way of being. And I achieved something I thought might take a lot longer, a lot faster from human technology, not AI technology. In 1997-1999, my massive transformation in my life. And I did it in entrepreneurship and I did it by building a law firm. And all of a sudden I had all the money, more money I ever dreamt of. I had my primary residence at a beach house, which was a dream. I thought someday maybe in my life, like that would be incredible. And I decided that now all I want to do is have time, freedom, and be present for my children. And I want to coach all their teams and their games and their sports. My son may or may not be in this room and every word if he is, and he'll listen to some replays. 26 graduates from law school and his concerns are your concerns about AI. And they're my concerns at the highest level of ethics and possibility. And so I had the privilege for 12 years of being at everything my kids played in a thousand games. I missed nine of them, literally. And I went to like my day started when they got out of school. Like I had to just find ways. I owned a hundred person law firm and I went to like five hours a month. I was a business owner, not operator. And in integrity all they're not here. I created the frameworks to tell people the power of choice. Like we teach conscious imbalance things go larger momentum, abundance. And for you to create a X level or Y level financial abundance, we've prioritized like what you would do to achieve those levels of financial abundance, business development being more challenging, more valuable or not. So I have people that work for me for 25 years that have stayed in the exact same position because they've chosen the path intentionally, wisely and transparently. So what our work in the world of pre AI was about the genie in the bottle, except being the masterful, integrous wisher, where you had true discernment of your choices. And the power of choice, AI will say, has only exponentially accelerated that but the reason that we're launching our own large language model, the reason that we're not building on ChatGPT, is because we're creating this. We believe that the agents must know and that's why we say dynamic, complete, holistic, dynamic, diagnostic, dynamic. The dynamic part is something obviously Chachi PT has nothing to do with in the world. But we're taking this massive truth based wisdom of operating a capitalist structure and then allowing people to truly understand themselves at the highest level, putting all that together so people are consistently, dynamically making new choices, not governed or limited by like what genes do you want, but truly the healthiest place of ethical and we'll call it what you call ethical, we say call integris, integrous decision making. So I only want to contextualize that for all the listening of the audience that doesn't know that and also for your listening because every word you're saying, I didn't know what was going to happen today. I didn't know where this was going to go. And that's part of the fun and magic of it all. I knew your mastery. I had no idea. And I did do research. I do understand your positional ethics, but I didn't know where you truly were in your heart and mind. It is disruptively shocking for me to hear how present a genius like yourself is to what we on a human level are absolutely present to long before AI. And that's been the quest of my life. And the unblinded mission is that people are fully informed because I do our marketing and say like how could they have all been wrong? How could I have gone to Columbia? How could I have gone to law school? How could I have been all of these places and nowhere were they telling me the truth, were they giving me the truth of how I can create freedom for myself. And I joke and I'm not asking to make any comment all about Google. Like you Google the answer, it's all the wrong answers. If you Google how you market and build your business, how do you create freedom? You get a marketing company's SEO optimization of answers. I'm not asking you to comment at all, in any way, shape or form or if you're doing ChatGPT, they're the wrong answers. They are objectively the wrong answers. And I could prove that in three minutes. By the way, I also happen to be one, some would argue the greatest trial attorney in America. I don't think that part of me. So my ability to get the truth is what it is. And I've Never taken a case, would never take a case where I don't believe 100% in the ethics and integrity of the outcome. And my top jury verse in the nation are based upon that. And I've never examined their witness to make them look like they're lying when they're telling the truth. I would never do it. So I'm also about revamping our entire legal justice system consistent with that principle because I think it's broken tremendously. Because it incentivizes lawyers to lie because judges do not enforce the rules. The rules are right. It's the collegiality, the bias, the corruption of relationships that prevent judges from enforcing and disciplining lawyers when they should be disciplined. And lawyers who are very nice people who make really silly little mistakes in their trust account. None of these things ever happened to me, by the way, at all. So it's not defensive. Like, I've had the blessing and privilege of many beautiful things. But the system is broken. And what we're about is fixing systems. Now, I am clear that I'm sure I am at some level, Homer Simpson in a doofus somewhere. How I relate to you now is like, to help me see, like, where I'm a doofus and a horror Simpson. Because we are going to wield great power and my ability to stand up in front of rooms full of people and make them say, yes, there's not a human on earth better than I. And we're codifying influence, both integrity. Because it is what causes everything. It is what caused the United States of America. It's what caused Nelson Mandela. It's what caused that university to be renamed. It's what caused the end of apartheid. It's what caused the Sons of Liberty to cause the breaking free of England. It's what has caused every single thing. It's what caused Oprah Winfrey to be 25,000 times the net worth of the average American household, even though she had four statistically horrific facts. She was a woman. She was black. She was abused in her teens, and she was a teen in her childhood and a teen pregnant. You put those four things together mathematically, catastrophe. But we're not statistics. We have the capacity to master formulas, to be statistical outliers like Oprah. And that's what this work is all about. And so I wanted to share that so you can truly receive how your last answer of legacy only from our perspective makes your words more valuable in the room, makes everything we're up to in the world be more inspired. Those people back there who are sitting on our team are losing their minds on everything you're saying because they are living that every day. And I never, I'm blessed, as I'm sure you are, to never have to work another day in my life. I've been that blessed for a long, long time. And I'm doing this for the same reasons you're doing it. And we may not have exactly the same direct path of mission we're on, but I am here to make sure when I leave this earth on the final day, I know that I did not bury nor squander, but exponentially multiplied every town I have. And I'm building an army. But that's what I'm doing. I'm building an army of people that are armed with ethics and integrity to create influence with very specific meanings. Not just, oh, tell the truth. Because in the edges of integrity there's massive complexity. I am clear. We discuss all that, but in terms of just the basics of the broken educational system and you going to University of Chicago, I scream about that all the time here. Of our traditional educational models and you lived it, you discerned that. You proved that you rose above it. So I just want to also share. Thank you. Because we agree with you, Cassie, everyone in this room that typing in, hey, how do I get cooler? Is one of the saddest inputs somebody could possibly have. Hey, how do I make them like me even sadder? And so we are a stand for human, humans running and driving AI at the highest level to never cede our decision making authority to only have it enrich the possibilities to do, to do more well, to do more good till the end. So I thank you for what you're sharing. I'm hearing that from you as well.

Cassie Kozakov (65:58)

So this is the future before the future. Though I want to agree as to why Google search, particularly pre generative AI. Google search was not good for you as a source of advice. Why is that? Because it is helping you find things that were not written for you. Right. The search results. So think about this. You want to get advice on something, maybe you are. Maybe something is troubling in your marriage and you are offered the best advisor in the world. You've never talked to them though. But you know, here's Sean, he's the best advisor in the world and you expect that. The way you're going to get advice is you're going to run up to Sean, you're going to shout, should I get a divorce? And then you're going to listen to the first, just three seconds and then run away, right? No, no, that's not going to work for you. Why? Because you have to give context. You have to make it personal. And I even hear around smart people in the AI community saying dumb things like the right amount of context or the right context. That's like the right decision. There's no the right decision. There is a decision made. Well, that's suits what you need. The right decision. Sounds like we would all make the decision the same way. No, we need the skills of knowing what we need. Having the vision, being able to articulate and putting in the information that is necessary, the context, but also leaving out things. Those are all choices. How we craft all that, that's judgment. And so to get a human like Sean to help you with your marriage, you would have to give a lot of context and make it quite personalized. But with Google it's 2019, you have just put five pages of context in there and what do you get? No results. Right? Google taught you how to go online and be under advised to reduce the ambitiousness of your queries until they are about what every generic person would want an answer to. Even on the niche stuff, it's still generic. And you know the results you find they're not made for you, they're made in anticipation of. Hopefully people would care with SEO and all the rest of it. So if you are after something that is part of the human condition and or what all of us need a lot of or is the answer to your 101 homework, it's probably googleable. But if it is something that is actually important to your life. Right? That's why when you go find a human advisor, you give them a lot of context and you have to make choices all the way through. Apply judgment about that. Now this new thing, the automation of language, it makes advice cheap and abundant where context makes things better, not worse. So if you can get over your Google habits and now begin to approach it more like you would approach people. But hey, still, if you were going to ask a person, still ask a person, this is just your second opinion. Now you can get abundant advice, you still apply judgment, still apply judgment. But what is the future? Notice what I'm talking about here on the advice side is I'm talking about personalized. The Internet and the digital world were not personalized. In fact, most of your experience is not personalized. Now let's talk about Elon Musk for a moment or I think we would take him A lot less. Seriously, if he was called Leon Musk, that would work better. It would sound less like an alien. But like, let's say someone with that amount of wealth could have every experience personalized, right? Build him a restaurant exactly the way that he wants it, and that's he has it for dinner and then he has the restaurant for dinner. He has the food in the restaurant for dinner and then it's demolished the next day, right? Presumably possible. Now, why is that not available to you in digital and physical spaces? It costs a lot of resources to personalize. Except now in the digital space, the cost of personalization is going down. You want a minesweeper app that's got hearts and instead of mines, there you go. And that personalization is going to be sweeping. It's going to be everywhere. You will start to see that all kinds of things that we take for granted. One size fits all types of things. Why is your landing page for your bank the same for you as it is for the person next to you? Why can't we have a completely, fully on demand Internet? Actually, we're seeing browser releases. Google is releasing some things in exactly that direction. Imagine if everything was personalized and imagine if what it took was you having a vision for how you want things to be. You having the clarity and precision of communication to express that, to wish responsibly. So the genie gives you what you actually need, because that's what you asked for, not what you thought you asked for. Whoops. So now we have all kinds of things in the digital space are going personal and then we have in the physical space, because maybe products don't need to be made in small, medium, large, and put on a shelf, but might instead be able to be customized to your physical form and your measurements. And maybe that is very soon on the horizon. And you want some cool thing, Bob 3D printed for your, you know, to put under the Christmas tree for your friend? Sure, why not? That's the future as well. But here's the thing. When we start to personalize everything, then everybody, and this is a beautiful world, is doing all kinds of their own stuff. So far, so good. Except that makes more work for everybody, not less. You think we're going to have less to do in a world like that? The number of different ways that this all fits together, this insane jigsaw puzzle where before we knew what boxes we all fitted into, and we expected that one student would know approximately the same as another student coming out of school or one lawyer would be approximately similarly qualified to another Lawyer. But now in this future, everything is harder to coordinate and everyone's doing their own thing, right? Again, so much more surprise, so much more creativity, so interesting, but so much more to do just because of that. And so such a matchmaking problem of who are the colleagues out there that you're going to need on your unique journey with your unique requests. So we will have a period, I imagine, where unambitious people and unambitious companies and unambitious business owners will go pinching yesterday's pennies and we'll try to use all these fantastic tools to reduce costs, to replace people. That is small minded thinking. Because instead of pinching yesterday's pennies, why don't you prepare for such a strange future that we're all moving into with so many more moving parts? And then you realize that you need the people that you have because these are the people who carry the context. And what is more important than context for getting anything done? Context isn't in the data. Some of it is, but very little. Most of the world, the reality is not digitized. And so you're going to need these people to carry that context with you and you're going to reach for more. Instead of pinching yesterday's pennies, you're going to say these things we thought were expensive or impossible or, you know, it's too difficult to personalize your world like Elon Musk might. Why don't you ask yourself, maybe we're here now. Maybe we could personalize things. I mean, just think of the silly things, right? Like you call customer support. You want to claw your eyes out because of the awful music that you get tortured with, right? Imagine a future where you are on that menu and you go and play me metal music with the vocals of Britney Spears while I listen to, to this, I don't know what you're into and all the menus on 3x speed and give me fun facts about dolphins while I wait, right? You could have futures like that. How fun. How interesting, right? And think about education. What is the purpose anymore of teaching everybody the same thing? There are so many more things to learn, right? So think about this, right? So think about learning about something, right? World War II, instead of the teacher dryly writes it out on the board and has everybody do the same reading, the teacher could say, hey, everybody in the class, you can pick anything that is of interest to you within this period. Come use these tools and expand your knowledge. If you are into horses, learn about the role of horses in World War II and how that connects to Everything else. And the teacher will have tools that make them even faster than the students to in real time be fact checking and corralling the discussion so that the whole class can learn useful principles while everybody is interested and engaged in their own thing. And we will have everybody is their own keeper of one facet in this beautiful multifaceted reality. And again, so much more for us to do, so much more coordination. But think about how far we could leap. And then if you're worried about things like dying as one does, I don't know if you are, but we could live longer if we would be able to cure diseases. Are we going to cure diseases the old way that we've been doing it with no technological assistance, pen and paper and. No, no. We need to be able to have bigger expanded minds. These tools give us that possibility. We keep the parts that are human and you know, the heart, the judgment, the integrity. But memory, we're bad at that. Let's automate. Let's get better at memory. Let's get better at putting knowledge at our fingertips. Let's get better at trying many different solutions quickly and safely. Let's expand what we can do. So then we start curing diseases. What about climate change? We're going to solve that by recycling our cans. Every little bit helps, but how we're actually going to solve that is cheaper energy, that is not environmentally damaging, that is safe. What else are we going to do? Materials, Better materials. How are we going to find those better materials? How are we going to use our resources so much more effectively that it's not about each of us individually trying to be a better person, but just the whole thing together is so efficient that we are saving the environment. More than we're harming is precisely through technologies like AI that we get there that we become collectively smarter. So I see a bright and beautiful future. I see some short term moments with greedy people pinching yesterday's pennies, which will be a painful thing to watch as society adjusts. But then when we open our eyes and we see how much we could reach for and how much better life can be and how unique and personal and beautiful it's all going to be, then I think we would have started taking steps in the right direction.