The Exchanges

Q Interesting. Okay. So if that's where it started, what's next? Where do you think we're going next?

A Yeah. I mean, I, like I said, I think the end in mine is AI that is hyper-intelligent, generating realistic videos, generating infinitely all night, improving itself. And I think if you've seen in the past, whenever there is an era of abundance, you know, there's so much of this one thing, barrier to entry for creating anything is low. Mediocrity is going to be the norm because anyone can create anything. The pendulum swings and people really start to value curation and trust. And so I'm actually like more bullish on the creator economy and like the individual economy, more bullish than ever, because I really do think that When everyone has the means of this hyper-intelligent AI tool, people are going to pay attention to the things that stand out.

AI assessment note: “I think the end in mine is AI that is hyper-intelligent”

Q Interesting. Um, when you, you mentioned something weird that I want to go on a tangent on, which is, are we LLMs? What does that mean?

A So in Kurzweil's book, How to Create a Mind, he describes the mind as a collection of building blocks and how complex intelligence results from that collection, that organization. So it's a hierarchy of pattern recognizers. On the low level, you have pattern recognizers that recognize The shapes and letters, so M, I, L, that gets fed into higher level pattern recognizers where it's sentences, and then there's paragraphs, and then there's meaning, and at the highest level, there's consciousness, and you're not aware of all these lower level pattern recognizers, and so what is also a pattern recognizer? An LLM. It takes inputs, and it has outputs, it recognizes things, and so something that I think about a lot is, like, Are we just a hierarchy of GPT-tens, um, and what we're experiencing is consciousness, similar to how he described the mind working, and I also think about that a lot in terms of dreams, um, because if you see some of these AI-generated videos, I don't, I don't know how vivid your dreams are. I have very vivid dreams, but these dreams mimic exactly how these AI videos look.

AI assessment note: “Are we just a hierarchy of GPT-tens, um, and what we're experiencing is consciousness”

Q also people who work versus those who do not work are happier than those who do not work, that actually there is this, you know, sort of Um, seven million young men in the country who are choosing to opt out of the workforce today and, and thus have deaths of despair. So what happens to society if we're given income, but we're not needed? Don't you worry about that?

A I do. But if you think about human history, when we didn't have like all of these jobs, engineer, uh, SEO specialist, what was the meaning that people had? It was really, Their communities, you know, what you can do for your family, what you can do for the community around you, um, art and creativity. And so I think. One, AI democratizes creativity. You know, anyone can be a movie director. I personally think that's awesome because I've always had dreams to like create a Christopher Nolan like movie. I don't have the skill set to do it, but maybe with AI, I can try something. And I think, I think that's personally very exciting. Uh, and then the community, I think maybe we'll go back to like a community based society, which I think people are usually happier when they have a community and they're not just adding value to the shareholders, uh, but they're adding value to the people they love.

AI assessment note: “I do. But if you think about human history”

Q but currently it's like watching a toddler with an iPad, heavy supervision, right? Lots of interaction. And so I think seeing people do it live is super important. Um, but for somebody else who just wants to start on the path of AI, Is the answer just go to ChatGPT and start playing? Or what's the playbook for somebody that wants to learn more and doesn't know where to start?

A I think first thing is first principles. Like really try to understand the why of all these things and build up your foundation from the ground up. So you start with floor three, without floor one and two, building's gonna fall. You gotta build that foundation. And it takes time, but like that's, that's how you're gonna grow a strong, tall building. Uh, Two, with that first principles, having a long-term view. The long-term view is what it's going to set people apart. Three is, like you said, getting started with the ChatGPT, being creative, not being afraid of things not working. And then four is consistency. Uh, because there is shiny object syndrome, because there is TikTok, attention spans are lower than ever, and People are less and less willing to like do the work for long periods of time. And I think that's actually like a huge competitive advantage if you're able to do that.

AI assessment note: “I think first thing is first principles... Three is, like you said, getting started with the ChatGPT”

Q Interesting. And so in the future, will we sit in classrooms with chalkboards, with teachers, everybody teaching at the same level, or is this going extinct?

A Well, I do think the in-person experience is definitely always important, and I don't want to live in a world where we do value that. I think AI is about providing access where previously there may not have been access. So maybe there is a classroom, uh, you can communicate with other students, but then on the off time, You know, questions I may be embarrassed to ask in class, or a private tutoring session so you show up in class the next day more knowledgeable, you can participate more. That, that is a future that I'm more excited about. There may be a world where humans don't value in-person communication, but I just think that, you know, that's a kind of habit change that is going to take decades and even centuries to really manifest that we don't value in-person times with, with humans.

AI assessment note: “I do think the in-person experience is definitely always important”

Q Did you have a moment where you were laughed at when you started the company?

A So many times. I mean, people were like, one, oh, like you, you're not open AI. You don't have any AI researchers. You're not going to succeed. You need to own the model. The model's where the mode is, which actually turns out the model's commoditized. And I think the foundation model companies are at most at risk. Uh, two is like, why would people want this? I don't get it. And, uh, it just made me realize that People are very much thinking like now, and we need to teach people more to think about the end in mind, like the projection, like where is this going? Why does this matter? And why is this? Delphi is rooted in human psychology. We want to learn from other people. We read books. We watch YouTube videos. Uh, sometimes we pay for coaching. It's a first principles thinking like, yes, it works. And I actually think the book that helped me. Stick with Delphi for the first year, which was not easy, not working. There's a book called loon shots. Uh, it's one of our required readings in our company. And in the book, he talks about this concept of the false fail. And basically it's where something fails, but not because the idea is bad. But because something else about it is bad, like the execution. And so he talks about Peter Thiel evaluating MySpace as a social network, and people are leaving MySpace. And some people are like, oh, social networks don't work. Like, you shouldn'…

AI assessment note: “So many times. I mean, people were like, one, oh, like you, you're not open AI.”