The Exchanges

Q Now, I'd love to start, say, by hearing how you came to be a VC and a partner at Ludlow. So what was your route into venture?

A The one word that would summarize it is luck. I graduated college in 2009 from the University of Michigan, and I started, well, it was like the worst job market ever to graduate into, and my degree was probably the most worthless degree. Ever. It's called a bachelor of general studies, which means I was kind of a generalist in school. And so no one wanted to hire me with that. So I decided to start my own company, which was called wet it, which is kind of the first crowdsource wedding videography company. So back in the day when flip cameras were popular, we'd send them to couples who were getting married. They use those cameras to crowdsource the video, send it back to us in a prepaid box. We'd host all that stuff, make it easy to share to social networks. And then we hired a network of remote editors who are professionals by day who would edit their wedding videos, you know, I did that for three years or so, and it was an interesting experience. I didn't raise a lot of venture. It was based in Detroit, and what happened was I basically got burnt out. I had never been to a wedding before. I had no interest in the wedding industry. I saw a problem when I started a company, and after three years of every Sunday going to a wedding show, my friends were sitting down to drink beer and eat chicken wings and watch football. I said enough, and I was going to move to San Francisco, and…

AI assessment note: “The one word that would summarize it is luck.”

Q It's amazing. Fantastic. Okay, buying it now. And then, next question. So, in terms of, you, like me, loved CrossFit. You got diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Terribly sorry to say. And then, In terms of lessons learned, now you're back doing CrossFit. What were the three lessons that you learned from that tumultuous journey of CrossFit to Crohn's to CrossFit?

A Yeah, so the first thing I ever learned at CrossFit was, uh, you can lift more than you think, and so I'm a fairly, I'm a decently sized human being. I'm, like, six foot, two oh five, and the first day I went in there, I couldn't, like, I squatted, like, 95 pounds, something really, like, puny, and that was because, like, I'd never squatted before, and I didn't think I could, and literally the next day, I probably squatted 40 more pounds. And so you can always lift more than you think you could. That's applicable in anything. Don't set kind of upper bounds for, for your own life. The easiest gains are always at the beginning. So beginning of my CrossFit career and even coming back to it after being diagnosed with Crohn's, the amount I could lift would increase rapidly up until a certain point. And then it was exponential effort to get, you know, a minuscule gain. And I think that's a lot like working at a startup. So, you know, you're obviously going to have a 500% growth rate going from, you know, one to five. That will continue to a certain point, and you're going to hit a wall, I think, eventually, and, and having the mental fortitude to push through that, and then the other thing, especially coming back from Crohn's, I was really weak, and I kind of did these false starts a lot where I'd tell myself I was going to go to CrossFit. I'd go to one class. I'd be like, man, this …

AI assessment note: “false starts are not failures”

Q Now, I'd love to start, say, by hearing how you came to be a VC and a partner at Ludlow. So what was your route into venture?

A The one word that would summarize it is luck. I graduated college in 2009 from the University of Michigan, and I started, well, it was like the worst job market ever to graduate into, and my degree was probably the most worthless degree. Ever. It's called a bachelor of general studies, which means I was kind of a generalist in school. And so no one wanted to hire me with that. So I decided to start my own company, which was called wet it, which is kind of the first crowdsource wedding videography company. So back in the day when flip cameras were popular, we'd send them to couples who were getting married. They use those cameras to crowdsource the video, send it back to us in a prepaid box. We'd host all that stuff, make it easy to share to social networks. And then we hired a network of remote editors who are professionals by day who would edit their wedding videos, you know, I did that for three years or so, and it was an interesting experience. I didn't raise a lot of venture. It was based in Detroit, and what happened was I basically got burnt out. I had never been to a wedding before. I had no interest in the wedding industry. I saw a problem when I started a company, and after three years of every Sunday going to a wedding show, my friends were sitting down to drink beer and eat chicken wings and watch football. I said enough, and I was going to move to San Francisco, and…

AI assessment note: “that's when my friend Jonathan Trias... He was starting Ludlow.”

Q It's amazing. Fantastic. Okay, buying it now. And then, next question. So, in terms of, you, like me, loved CrossFit. You got diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Terribly sorry to say. And then, In terms of lessons learned, now you're back doing CrossFit. What were the three lessons that you learned from that tumultuous journey of CrossFit to Crohn's to CrossFit?

A Yeah, so the first thing I ever learned at CrossFit was, uh, you can lift more than you think, and so I'm a fairly, I'm a decently sized human being. I'm, like, six foot, two oh five, and the first day I went in there, I couldn't, like, I squatted, like, 95 pounds, something really, like, puny, and that was because, like, I'd never squatted before, and I didn't think I could, and literally the next day, I probably squatted 40 more pounds. And so you can always lift more than you think you could. That's applicable in anything. Don't set kind of upper bounds for, for your own life. The easiest gains are always at the beginning. So beginning of my CrossFit career and even coming back to it after being diagnosed with Crohn's, the amount I could lift would increase rapidly up until a certain point. And then it was exponential effort to get, you know, a minuscule gain. And I think that's a lot like working at a startup. So, you know, you're obviously going to have a 500% growth rate going from, you know, one to five. That will continue to a certain point, and you're going to hit a wall, I think, eventually, and, and having the mental fortitude to push through that, and then the other thing, especially coming back from Crohn's, I was really weak, and I kind of did these false starts a lot where I'd tell myself I was going to go to CrossFit. I'd go to one class. I'd be like, man, this …

AI assessment note: “the first thing I ever learned at CrossFit was, uh, you can lift”

Q And you said about being founder friendly and the really nice guys to work with when the times that are shit come. So, so what do you think most VCs interpret when they say founder first? And then I'd love to hear how you interpret it at Ludlow.

A Yeah. So I think, you know, I think founder first is become synonymous with nice and friendly. And I think it should run deeper than that. So there's a common emotional experience that I think, you know, most entrepreneurs go through, whether you're, you know, Travis at Uber or you're Joe in Iowa, you know, running a plumbing company, whatever. There are certain things and, and self doubt and mistakes and all these things that you go through that I think a lot of VCs can lose touch with and take out the emotional part. And so when we say founder first, we really try to To make it about an investment in people. And so caring beyond just like, you know, how well you did this quarter, if you hit your numbers, this and that, and then being friendly about it, it's, it's a whole ball of, you know, being honest at all times, having their best interests at heart. When sometimes it's maybe not aligned for the company, you can tell when entrepreneurs are getting burnt out or they're struggling. And sometimes, you know, I don't have a problem saying like, Hey, I don't think this is, this is, you know, right for you. I don't know if this is going anywhere. Let's have a conversation about it. Let's talk about, you know, your struggles. If we can improve them, How you're feeling about the whole thing. Cause I know when I was doing my company, I was burnt out probably a year and a half in, an…

AI assessment note: “when we say founder first, we really try to To make it about an investment in people.”

Q So what would you like to see then change in the VC ecosystem with regards to the treatment of founders?

A Yeah. So I think, you know, like I said, I think a lot of the founder friendly stuff is very surface level. It's like, we're nice, we're friendly, you know, we'd be pleasant to talk to. I think there could be a bigger emphasis on like diving deeper with people, developing real relationships. I think in general, you know, every once in a while I see a Twitter thread, you know, pop up of, of, you know, VCs mocking people who are, you know, trying to get in front of them and tell them about their idea. And that just makes me cringe. Um, one, I think it's short sighted on the VCs part because, you know, if a kid from, Missouri who has a business idea and has not been exposed working at Google or Facebook or the tech community at large sends you an email asking for advice or 30 minutes of your time for coffee. Even if you respond politely, but then he sees on Twitter that, you know, you started something like, haha, dear sir, madam, another one of these. When that person finally figures it out and reads a couple blog posts about how to, you know, get entered to a VC, they're not going to come to you anymore. And so I think it's just a general sense of that people starting businesses are, are people and they're not an asset class to be invested in. And so I think when more and more VCs understand that and, and treat venture capital as a customer service business, as a human relations…

AI assessment note: “treat venture capital as a customer service business, as a human relationship business”

Q So what do you think, you mentioned that kind of consumer trust. Do you think that's the biggest challenge then to the rise of self-driving cars, or are there others potentially more, more challenging to kind of mass market proliferation?

A Yeah, so I think trust is going to be a huge thing, especially in this, the transitional period where some people are in self-driving cars. And some people are driving their own cars. I think it gets easier and easier to trust the system where every car is autonomous and it's computers making decisions because it's much more predictable than human responses. I also think the liability is a huge issue and it's something I think about a lot and there's probably way smarter people than myself who are both philosophers and working on artificial intelligence is, you know, if I'm in a self-driving car and there's an accident about to happen and there's a family of three next to me driving down the road, Is the computer going to decide to swerve out of the way to protect my life and then endanger the family of three? Or is there a greater good type philosophy programmed into it that says, all right, well, the family of three, the car next to me, I shouldn't put them in danger. So my driver is going to be at risk. And if that happens, you know, who has the liability? It's not the driver because they weren't driving. Is it the auto manufacturer who kind of programmed the computer to make that decision? And so all these kind of like weird liability things and these hypothetical situations where a On behalf of a passenger, really kind of fascinate me.

AI assessment note: “I also think the liability is a huge issue”

Q I'm really intrigued then when, when Jonathan said that to you at the kitchen table, were you apprehensive about it? What were your expectations of venture going into venture? And has it lived up to what you thought it would be?

A Yeah, that's a good question. I wasn't apprehensive at all. I said yes. I think he was shocked at how quickly I said yes, because there was no fun for me to really go work at, at the time there, there was no vehicle to invest out of. And so I said yes on the spot. And then it was, you know, six to nine months of toiling away, raising money before, before we actually took paychecks. And so I didn't have an expectation. I saw how Jonathan operated every day and the mentality at Ludlow and what he really started from the beginning was we're going to be really, really founder friendly, really great guys to work with. We're always going to have the founder's best interest at heart. And as an entrepreneur who was really struggling at his own startup at the time, I really was drawn to that. And I said, if I can go do what he's doing with other entrepreneurs, I'll figure the rest out. But that looks like something that would be You know, really fulfilling and something I'd want to try.

AI assessment note: “I wasn't apprehensive at all. I said yes.”

Q of putting the founders first, uh, even if it doesn't come in the best interest of the company, I'm really intrigued as to how you balance that slight element of contention of the kind of fiduciary responsibility to your LPs of a good return and also the best for the company itself. With regards to the founder, whether they should or shouldn't be there. So how do you balance that?

A Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting question and something I think I, I struggle with from time to time, but whenever I get to that place, I really try to think longterm. And so if we're talking about what's in the best interest of our LPs and our fiduciary responsibility, I would argue that making sure that the caveat included saying like, if the founder is, you know, doing anything malicious and, you know, stealing money from the company, embezzling, whatever, um, Then it becomes a whole different story. But assuming the founder is acting with good intentions, doing the best of their ability, they're getting burnt out, whatever. I would argue that handling that person and putting their needs above the company, because in most of my, most of my experience, the founders that are struggling the hardest are oftentimes at the early stages or things aren't going right. And there's not a lot to grasp onto is that saying, you know, a company that is probably not going to have a good outcome anyway, but it's driving this founder insane. They're a good person. They're going to have more companies than them. Treating that person well, handling it with respect, Making sure that they're comfortable is long-term a better outcome for both our LPs, us, and the founder than trying to sell the company and claw back our money. Because at the end of the day, when you make an investment, the worst …

AI assessment note: “Treating that person well... is long-term a better outcome for both our LPs”

Q Can I ask, with such founder alignment and such kind of integration into their lives and their struggles, how do you balance between being their investor and advisor and being their friend who they invite along to the ballgame, and is that a problem, having that?

A I don't think that's a problem at all, because I think the closer you can come to developing an actual friendship, the better the business relationship will be, and so I think if you're the person who they want to go to the ballgame with or have a beer with or watch football with or talk about They're failing marriage or whatever with, then they'll feel comfortable coming to you and saying, hey, listen, we have, you know, two months of cash in the bank. I don't think we're going to be able to raise another round. What are we to do? Because they're going to go to somebody about that anyway, and most likely it's going to be their closest friends and family and their confidants, and so if you can become one of those inner circle of people, you'll hear about it before anybody else, and you'll be the person they're coming to telling you about their problems, and then it also makes it a lot more fun to fucking celebrate when things are good, because then you're with people you like, and it's a real, you know, Honest to goodness celebration. Not because you both just made a little bit of money. It's because you went through this journey together and you're triumphant. And that's like the better, better feeling than anything.

AI assessment note: “I don't think that's a problem at all, because I think the closer”

Q And you said about being founder friendly and the really nice guys to work with when the times that are shit come. So, so what do you think most VCs interpret when they say founder first? And then I'd love to hear how you interpret it at Ludlow.

A Yeah. So I think, you know, I think founder first is become synonymous with nice and friendly. And I think it should run deeper than that. So there's a common emotional experience that I think, you know, most entrepreneurs go through, whether you're, you know, Travis at Uber or you're Joe in Iowa, you know, running a plumbing company, whatever. There are certain things and, and self doubt and mistakes and all these things that you go through that I think a lot of VCs can lose touch with and take out the emotional part. And so when we say founder first, we really try to To make it about an investment in people. And so caring beyond just like, you know, how well you did this quarter, if you hit your numbers, this and that, and then being friendly about it, it's, it's a whole ball of, you know, being honest at all times, having their best interests at heart. When sometimes it's maybe not aligned for the company, you can tell when entrepreneurs are getting burnt out or they're struggling. And sometimes, you know, I don't have a problem saying like, Hey, I don't think this is, this is, you know, right for you. I don't know if this is going anywhere. Let's have a conversation about it. Let's talk about, you know, your struggles. If we can improve them, How you're feeling about the whole thing. Cause I know when I was doing my company, I was burnt out probably a year and a half in, an…

AI assessment note: “when we say founder first, we really try to To make it about an investment”

Q So what would you like to see then change in the VC ecosystem with regards to the treatment of founders?

A Yeah. So I think, you know, like I said, I think a lot of the founder friendly stuff is very surface level. It's like, we're nice, we're friendly, you know, we'd be pleasant to talk to. I think there could be a bigger emphasis on like diving deeper with people, developing real relationships. I think in general, you know, every once in a while I see a Twitter thread, you know, pop up of, of, you know, VCs mocking people who are, you know, trying to get in front of them and tell them about their idea. And that just makes me cringe. Um, one, I think it's short sighted on the VCs part because, you know, if a kid from, Missouri who has a business idea and has not been exposed working at Google or Facebook or the tech community at large sends you an email asking for advice or 30 minutes of your time for coffee. Even if you respond politely, but then he sees on Twitter that, you know, you started something like, haha, dear sir, madam, another one of these. When that person finally figures it out and reads a couple blog posts about how to, you know, get entered to a VC, they're not going to come to you anymore. And so I think it's just a general sense of that people starting businesses are, are people and they're not an asset class to be invested in. And so I think when more and more VCs understand that and, and treat venture capital as a customer service business, as a human relations…

AI assessment note: “bigger emphasis on like diving deeper with people, developing real relationships.”

Q So what do you think, you mentioned that kind of consumer trust. Do you think that's the biggest challenge then to the rise of self-driving cars, or are there others potentially more, more challenging to kind of mass market proliferation?

A Yeah, so I think trust is going to be a huge thing, especially in this, the transitional period where some people are in self-driving cars. And some people are driving their own cars. I think it gets easier and easier to trust the system where every car is autonomous and it's computers making decisions because it's much more predictable than human responses. I also think the liability is a huge issue and it's something I think about a lot and there's probably way smarter people than myself who are both philosophers and working on artificial intelligence is, you know, if I'm in a self-driving car and there's an accident about to happen and there's a family of three next to me driving down the road, Is the computer going to decide to swerve out of the way to protect my life and then endanger the family of three? Or is there a greater good type philosophy programmed into it that says, all right, well, the family of three, the car next to me, I shouldn't put them in danger. So my driver is going to be at risk. And if that happens, you know, who has the liability? It's not the driver because they weren't driving. Is it the auto manufacturer who kind of programmed the computer to make that decision? And so all these kind of like weird liability things and these hypothetical situations where a On behalf of a passenger, really kind of fascinate me.

AI assessment note: “I also think the liability is a huge issue and it's something I think about”

Q I'm really intrigued then when, when Jonathan said that to you at the kitchen table, were you apprehensive about it? What were your expectations of venture going into venture? And has it lived up to what you thought it would be?

A Yeah, that's a good question. I wasn't apprehensive at all. I said yes. I think he was shocked at how quickly I said yes, because there was no fun for me to really go work at, at the time there, there was no vehicle to invest out of. And so I said yes on the spot. And then it was, you know, six to nine months of toiling away, raising money before, before we actually took paychecks. And so I didn't have an expectation. I saw how Jonathan operated every day and the mentality at Ludlow and what he really started from the beginning was we're going to be really, really founder friendly, really great guys to work with. We're always going to have the founder's best interest at heart. And as an entrepreneur who was really struggling at his own startup at the time, I really was drawn to that. And I said, if I can go do what he's doing with other entrepreneurs, I'll figure the rest out. But that looks like something that would be You know, really fulfilling and something I'd want to try.

AI assessment note: “I wasn't apprehensive at all. I said yes.”

Q Can I ask, with such founder alignment and such kind of integration into their lives and their struggles, how do you balance between being their investor and advisor and being their friend who they invite along to the ballgame, and is that a problem, having that?

A I don't think that's a problem at all, because I think the closer you can come to developing an actual friendship, the better the business relationship will be, and so I think if you're the person who they want to go to the ballgame with or have a beer with or watch football with or talk about They're failing marriage or whatever with, then they'll feel comfortable coming to you and saying, hey, listen, we have, you know, two months of cash in the bank. I don't think we're going to be able to raise another round. What are we to do? Because they're going to go to somebody about that anyway, and most likely it's going to be their closest friends and family and their confidants, and so if you can become one of those inner circle of people, you'll hear about it before anybody else, and you'll be the person they're coming to telling you about their problems, and then it also makes it a lot more fun to fucking celebrate when things are good, because then you're with people you like, and it's a real, you know, Honest to goodness celebration. Not because you both just made a little bit of money. It's because you went through this journey together and you're triumphant. And that's like the better, better feeling than anything.

AI assessment note: “I don't think that's a problem at all, because I think the closer you can come”

Q of putting the founders first, uh, even if it doesn't come in the best interest of the company, I'm really intrigued as to how you balance that slight element of contention of the kind of fiduciary responsibility to your LPs of a good return and also the best for the company itself. With regards to the founder, whether they should or shouldn't be there. So how do you balance that?

A Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting question and something I think I, I struggle with from time to time, but whenever I get to that place, I really try to think longterm. And so if we're talking about what's in the best interest of our LPs and our fiduciary responsibility, I would argue that making sure that the caveat included saying like, if the founder is, you know, doing anything malicious and, you know, stealing money from the company, embezzling, whatever, um, Then it becomes a whole different story. But assuming the founder is acting with good intentions, doing the best of their ability, they're getting burnt out, whatever. I would argue that handling that person and putting their needs above the company, because in most of my, most of my experience, the founders that are struggling the hardest are oftentimes at the early stages or things aren't going right. And there's not a lot to grasp onto is that saying, you know, a company that is probably not going to have a good outcome anyway, but it's driving this founder insane. They're a good person. They're going to have more companies than them. Treating that person well, handling it with respect, Making sure that they're comfortable is long-term a better outcome for both our LPs, us, and the founder than trying to sell the company and claw back our money. Because at the end of the day, when you make an investment, the worst …

AI assessment note: “Treating that person well... is long-term a better outcome for both our LPs”

Q going to plan and things, you know, they're raising multiple bridge rounds and it's obvious that it's not working. How do you have that honest Feedback and honest conversation with the founder to let them know that it's not working and there won't be any more follow on funding. What does that look like for you? And how do you relate in the most kind of helpful and productive manner?

A I mean, it's painful. It's not a fun conversation to have. And so hopefully, you know, what I spoke about is like building that friendship is that, is that what makes it a little bit easier? Cause the founder knows you're coming from a place of their best interest, the company's best interest. It doesn't seem like you're trying to like back channel them and get them out and Hey, we need to replace you cause this isn't working. And so honesty is something that we always try to do, and so whether it's, you know, passing on a company and giving, you know, a couple of reasons why we're passing, I think everyone at Ludlow tries to do their best to be honest with that assessment, and sometimes, you know, we'll just straight up say, like, we don't believe in this, like, we don't think this is a good idea, and I don't think this is going to work in as respectful a manner as possible. Those conversations are painful, and so building that kind of basis of friendship and trust and transparency is what allows you to have those conversations without The other person on the other side of the table thinking there's some malicious intent behind it.

AI assessment note: “building that kind of basis of friendship and trust and transparency is what allows you”

Q going to plan and things, you know, they're raising multiple bridge rounds and it's obvious that it's not working. How do you have that honest Feedback and honest conversation with the founder to let them know that it's not working and there won't be any more follow on funding. What does that look like for you? And how do you relate in the most kind of helpful and productive manner?

A I mean, it's painful. It's not a fun conversation to have. And so hopefully, you know, what I spoke about is like building that friendship is that, is that what makes it a little bit easier? Cause the founder knows you're coming from a place of their best interest, the company's best interest. It doesn't seem like you're trying to like back channel them and get them out and Hey, we need to replace you cause this isn't working. And so honesty is something that we always try to do, and so whether it's, you know, passing on a company and giving, you know, a couple of reasons why we're passing, I think everyone at Ludlow tries to do their best to be honest with that assessment, and sometimes, you know, we'll just straight up say, like, we don't believe in this, like, we don't think this is a good idea, and I don't think this is going to work in as respectful a manner as possible. Those conversations are painful, and so building that kind of basis of friendship and trust and transparency is what allows you to have those conversations without The other person on the other side of the table thinking there's some malicious intent behind it.

AI assessment note: “building that kind of basis of friendship and trust and transparency is what allows you”

Q It was GM who bought Cruise. GM would buy everything. Um, but, so do you think it's an M&A environment like that, or do you think it's an internal environment like, I know Toyota have got a self-driving internal division, so will it be an internal, or do you think it will be an M&A acquisition environment?

A I think it's, I think it's going to be, like, everything I think a little bit of both. I think GM has really shown with some of their acquisitions and investments that they're really thinking about this in the future. Ford, I think, I don't know what they're doing internally. They came out recently and said they're going to have, you know, a completely self-driving car with no steering wheel, no pedals, no anything by like 20, 21, which is six years out, five years out, whatever it is, which is shockingly fast. I did not think that was going to be happening so soon. I'm also curious to see how consumers react because there's an element of loss of control. You know, if I get in a car and it's Portaling me around at 80 miles an hour, and there's no steering wheel or pedal. That could be, might be a bit of a freaky experience, especially with other drivers on the road who aren't in self-driving cars.

AI assessment note: “I think it's going to be, like, everything I think a little bit of both.”

Q It was GM who bought Cruise. GM would buy everything. Um, but, so do you think it's an M&A environment like that, or do you think it's an internal environment like, I know Toyota have got a self-driving internal division, so will it be an internal, or do you think it will be an M&A acquisition environment?

A I think it's, I think it's going to be, like, everything I think a little bit of both. I think GM has really shown with some of their acquisitions and investments that they're really thinking about this in the future. Ford, I think, I don't know what they're doing internally. They came out recently and said they're going to have, you know, a completely self-driving car with no steering wheel, no pedals, no anything by like 20, 21, which is six years out, five years out, whatever it is, which is shockingly fast. I did not think that was going to be happening so soon. I'm also curious to see how consumers react because there's an element of loss of control. You know, if I get in a car and it's Portaling me around at 80 miles an hour, and there's no steering wheel or pedal. That could be, might be a bit of a freaky experience, especially with other drivers on the road who aren't in self-driving cars.

AI assessment note: “I think it's going to be, like, everything I think a little bit of both.”

Q If we get onto the technical levels of that, though, would that moral consciousness of whether to kill one or another not be considered artificial superintelligence, which I think we'd both say is maybe even out of my lifetime, which is rather depressing for me, but would that not constitute ASI, having that moral consciousness?

A Yeah, so I don't know, it, it might, and so I don't know if that's out of our lifetime, but I think that's a question that's going to need to be answered, and I'm not sure that The computer will necessarily, at least in the first version, be judging and weighing whose life is worth more, but I think it could get to that point where I don't want to see kind of a dystopian future where if I have a bigger bank account, the computer knows that, and if there's a person driving in a car next to me who's got some kind of ID on them or something and has a lower bank account that, you know, the computers collectively go to save my life more because I can pay more to have Uh, collision protection from my artificial intelligence overlord or whatever it is. Um, so, you know, I don't want to get there, and I think there's a lot of interesting questions around AI about, I think it could go either extremely well or, or be terrible, and we could be, you know, in a Terminator Matrix type situation, and so I'm glad there's smarter people than me working on hopefully preventing that.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, so I don't know, it, it might”

Q If we get onto the technical levels of that, though, would that moral consciousness of whether to kill one or another not be considered artificial superintelligence, which I think we'd both say is maybe even out of my lifetime, which is rather depressing for me, but would that not constitute ASI, having that moral consciousness?

A Yeah, so I don't know, it, it might, and so I don't know if that's out of our lifetime, but I think that's a question that's going to need to be answered, and I'm not sure that The computer will necessarily, at least in the first version, be judging and weighing whose life is worth more, but I think it could get to that point where I don't want to see kind of a dystopian future where if I have a bigger bank account, the computer knows that, and if there's a person driving in a car next to me who's got some kind of ID on them or something and has a lower bank account that, you know, the computers collectively go to save my life more because I can pay more to have Uh, collision protection from my artificial intelligence overlord or whatever it is. Um, so, you know, I don't want to get there, and I think there's a lot of interesting questions around AI about, I think it could go either extremely well or, or be terrible, and we could be, you know, in a Terminator Matrix type situation, and so I'm glad there's smarter people than me working on hopefully preventing that.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, so I don't know, it, it might”