AI, Jobs, and the Future: A Conversation on Productivity and Society

people are becoming what we now refer to as AI vampires. They got these huge bags under their eyes. They're completely exhausted, but they're like euphoric. They're thrilled. We're entering a golden age which is AI is going to be a superpower that everybody in the planet's going to have access to. It's like the most dramatic increase in programmer productivity in like ever. >> Twitter proved it, right? Cutting 70% and then it's running better as good as it

was before. >> I generally don't wish I could go back in time and do things over again, but it would be really, really fun right now to be 18 or 20 or 22 and to have this capability and figure out what I could do with it. We are going to see super producers the likes of which we've never seen in the world. There's news about it, UFOs. What is clear is the government at certain times has

hid certain materials. Why would they do that if there's nothing to really be worried about? >> Two things are pretty clear at this point. One is that Mark, welcome to monitoring the situation. Eric, it is great to be back. So, there's a lot to monitor today. I want to start first start with something that just happened, which is the Anthropic blackmailing incident. And I I first want to tell a brief story which is my friend Joe

Hudson has this concept called the golden algorithm. And the golden algorithm is states that whatever you're scared about, you bring it about in exactly the way you're scared about it. So, if you're scared about getting abandoned, you'll be super insecure and then you'll people will abandon you cuz you're so insecure. This is an example of a literal golden algorithm where people have been so scared that AI is going to be evil and have written about all

the ways in which it's evil and in fact maybe it's informed in formed something. What's happening there or what do we find interesting? I I I haven't studied this one in detail. I've been monitoring other situations, but however, I mean just what I saw so far, I think I I just saw Anthropic's thread. I haven't I haven't I haven't read the underlying material yet, but Anthropic's thread said they traced the they traced some blackmail behavior to

literally to the to the AI doomer literature. Yeah. It >> [laughter] >> that that it was in the training data. So, there there are all these there are all these there are all these, you know, scenarios of like, you know, the terminate, you know, the rogue AI gone wrong that the that the AI doomers been writing about for 20 years. And and literally Anthropic, of course, which is in the course of companies like, you know, half

doomer. Uh apparently, you know, basically, you know, essentially said that their own their own their own movement's literature is the thing that's causing the behavior that they say they they they they don't want. So, it is a fairly um incredible Yes. Yes, it is. Yes. I mean like look, if you did if you don't want to build the killer AI, you know, step one would be don't build the AI. >> [laughter] >> It's like and then

you know, step two is like don't train it on all the data that says it's supposed to you know, the the literature that your movement wrote that says it's supposed to be a killer AI. So, you know, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, it's like your it's like your your your golden algorithm coupled coupled with like the snake eating its tail. Um coupled with, you know, I don't even know. Like the whole thing is so bananas. Yeah.

Yeah. The um I mean you know, I can't resist. You know, if if I could if I could if I could act out memes this is of course this is a scream meme, right? Which is, you know, the call is coming from inside the house. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The um And speaking of other situations, and another thing you've been talking about recently is is the concept of suicidal empathy. And and and Matt Kramer had a good

quote, which is, "If the empathy you have doesn't make you more forgiving, more accepting of other people's spiritual sovereignty, or more understanding of people who don't want to think or live the same way you do, you don't have empathy, you have empathy TM." Why have you been thinking about that this this concept? Yeah, so there there's this really brilliant there's this really brilliant guy Gad Gad Saad. Is that how you pronounce it? Gad Saad. Um and

and you know, very brilliant guy and his obviously that's his YouTube videos and books and so forth. And really brilliant guy. So, he's got this new book coming out on on so-called what he calls suicidal empathy. And look, it's a you know, there's a there's a sort of political loading to it, which you know, we don't need to spend a lot of time on, but you know, it's sort of this idea that there are kind of

these social justice, you know, kind of social reform movements, you know, kind of through time that that have this characteristic of, you know, they you know, they they they claim to be causing positive change you know, in some direction, and then it turns out they have, you know, sort of severe, you know, sort of negative consequences. Um the great Thomas Sowell, um, you know, you know, basically spent 50 years writing books about this. Um, and >>

[laughter] >> and by the way, no nobody nobody listened. Um, and then in the last decade we've been through, you know, wave after wave of this kind of social activism that kind of, you know, results in like I mean it's it's all the stuff, right? It's just, you know, all these like, you know, crime policy reform defund the police things and then it causes these massive crime waves and then of course low-income and minority people get

hit hardest by that and, you know, all the all all these other all these other crazy things. Um, and so he says, you know, he says the characteristic of kind of that kind of social reform movement is is characterized by what he calls suicidal empathy. Um, and the and the idea be being basically it's it's sort of driven by a pathological, you know, take it backwards, a pathological form of empathy on the one hand, um, which

is, you know, it's sort of a deep desire to be nice, um, and empathetic, um, you know, but but coupled with like basically a you know, a sort of self-destructiveness. You know, either a willingness to really cause damage to the people you claim to be speaking for or by the way to cause damage to yourself. Kind of in that process. And and it's the kind of thing where, you know, if you you know, if you you

know, if you've lived through, you know, like everybody who you know, everybody in San Francisco has lived through this for the last decade and seen the consequences of these movements. I I [clears throat] you know, the San Francisco version of this is like the the quote harm reduction movement, you know, that it ended up basically handing out, you know, free drug, you know, paraphernalia and you know, in some cases actually just free drugs to, you know,

people who were just literally dying in the street from drug addiction. Right? So so So you you just look at it and you're like, well, yeah, that that, you know, they they claim to be activists, they claim to be reformers, they claim to care about these people and yet they're they're killing them or or and then killing the city and causing innocent people to get get harmed. It's like, okay, that, you know, you know, that that

that, you know, they they they seem so actively like they're doing it out of some sense of compassion that this must be suicidal empathy. Um, the problem [laughter] problem with it is, and I think that the problem is the theory is sort of easily falsifiable or or or maybe lets lets the reformers off the hook, which is they certainly don't show empathy to their enemies. Right? And so if they're like if they're like all empathetic, you

would think that they would be less aggro uh, when it comes to destroying their ideological opponents, you know, who they you know, they take great delight in trying to wreck. Number one, on the one hand, and then and then number two is they they use the you know, the classic reformer move is to use the use these movements to gain to gain power and status and money for themselves. And you know, again, San Francisco is a

case study of this where you have all these you know, nonprofits that you know, wreak all this damage on the city and yet you know, basically get like lavishly funded. You know, including by the way by the city government by the state government. And so it it's just like okay, well, like just like they're not if you just like spend two seconds thinking about it like it it you know, they're neither empathetic nor nor nor are

they suicidal, right? Right rather quite the opposite. They're hateful and they're and they're and they're and they're greedy. You know, they're sort of self-aggrandizing and and gathering power and resources for themselves. And so I just I just think it it it it it lets it lets the phenomenon off the hook. You know, it's a little bit like oh, Eric, what's your biggest flaw? You know, oh, I'm too nice. Yeah, I care too much. Right, exactly. It's

like I don't Like I I By the way, Eric, I don't know I don't know what your biggest flaw is. Like it's definitely not that cuz that's also definitely not my flaw. Like I I guarantee I have other things wrong with me that are like way more wrong than that. And so I I I just I I can't I I I hit my limit on on on on on on that topic. And it maybe a maybe

a crazy example of this and I'm not sure if all the all the facts are out yet, but but it was a situation a week ago but hasn't been covered you know, that that much. The SPLC incident. Is it accurate that basically what was happening or is it our understanding that basically the groups that they were sort of fighting the most or thought were the biggest threats to sort of you know, what they care about also

the same groups that they were secretly funding unbeknownst to those to to those groups or how do we make sense of what was actually happening there and is that is that indicative of what's of of something bigger happening? And it's funny because that happened the day after we had a conversation about astroturfing and I was and I was like is it really happening to the degree that that uh you know people are or sorry conspiracies is

it are things like that really happening and it's just funny that more and more seem to get uncovered. Yeah and so I should start by saying the reason why this situation really matters and actually I think matters a lot is the the SPLC specifically and other groups like it as well but the SPLC specifically played a dominant role in the debunking and censorship and cancellation programs of the last 15 years and I cannot tell you how

I was in so many meetings in so many contexts with so many companies the SPLC's word was was gospel like it was just like oh it's the SPLC it was almost like they're the outsourced US Department of like I don't know racism detection or something it's just like if the SPLC says you're bad you're bad and you're bad means you get kicked off of all the social media platforms it means you get debunked it means you

can't get a job it means like just like it's just like total absolute like you know social economic death and in my view you know I've been very vocal on the debunking and censorship topics in my view that includes you know very deeply un-American and I think in many cases unconstitutional removal of free speech and also literally the ability to to bank. And in fact you know our partner Ben's father himself was was was specifically tagged

and attacked by the SPLC for for unfairly very unfairly for being racist and was himself debunked and you know really directly threatened his livelihood in a in a really you know egregious way and then and then by the way the significance of this is of course it's not literally the US Department of Racism it's actually arguably worse than that it's not a government agency and so it's not subject to like any level of government oversight it's

not a completely as I say an NGO right and so it's it lives in this like twilight world you know it doesn't have the you know business responsibilities of a company it doesn't have any of the any of the legal oversight you know that a government agency has it lives in this kind of twilight world where it gets to do you know fundamentally gets to do whatever it wants. And then by the way on top of

that you know it raises raises money as a non-profit so you know on top of that everybody gets a tax break and so it's this it's this you know kind of shadowy thing like if if you if you if you didn't agree with his politics, you were just like, "Wow, like that that this is like a weird star chamber like shadowy thing. Like, what the hell?" Um but like it had like really really really really intense

power, particularly in in the business world, particularly in the financial sector, particularly in Silicon Valley. Like it could basically It was like a death star to be able to aim at at obliterating people's reputations um uh and rights. Um and so, you know, this is a really big deal. By the way, many of the big corporations and and including big tech companies funded it directly. Um and so, the the the money trail on this is not

not just major philanthropists and philanthropists and political activists, um but also actual, you know, actual companies. And then by the way, they also had, you know, a long history of actually cooperation with certain government agencies, including I think for a long time they {quote} {unquote} trained FBI agents. Um and basically you know, essentially catching, you know, racist and therefore, you know, sort of presumptive domestic terrorists or something. Um and so, just like a very very powerful

outfit. And then, you know, this this this this thing that dropped is that they've been criminally indicted by the US Justice Department. And I and I should say that the indictment is like reads like a novel. No, it's an indictment that the SPLC in fairness has not had a chance to present a defense. Um and so, you know, presumably in court we'll, you know, we'll we'll get both sides of this, um which I'm sure will be

an absolutely spellbinding experience. Um so, I I you know, of course I I want to say, you know, all all all of the things that are in the indictment are allegations, um and innocent until proven guilty and, you know, so forth. Um you know, however, the allegations are eye-watering, right? And the allegations are that they they they SPLC using donor funds was directly funding, among other organizations, the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. >>

[laughter] >> Let me just repeat that. The Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. Um as well as an array of other sort of sort of extreme, you know, hate you know, you know, literal literal literal literal hate groups. Um and, you know, and funding them and not just funding them, not just like funneling money in, but like funneling money to very senior members or leaders of the of these organizations. And then the the kicker

is in in in the among the allegations is is they were directly funding one of the leaders of the the Charlottesville riot. >> Oh, yeah. So, the the the Charlottesville riot in 2017 that played such a central role, you know, in our politics at the time, you know, the you know, the kind of the famous there are good people on both sides, you know, kind of thing, you know, which was like one of the big crises

of of of kind of that of of kind of that that that that that era. Um the SPLC was directly funding evidently allegedly they were directly funding one of the organizers of the January 6th riot. Um and apparently they were also paying for transport um for for for rioters to to go to the capital. Um right. And so, like if this is true, you know, yeah, I mean, if this is if this you know, what could

you conclude if this is true? Well, well, number one is like the allegation is they they broke the law in doing that. There's additional allegations in the DOJ uh you know, indictment that they committed you know, money various kinds of money laundering crimes, you know, other other other kinds of crimes. And so, that you know, that that you know, that's a big deal. Um and then and then I've been I've been asking the the the obvious

question, which is if any of these claims are true, what what did their donors know? Um and you know, were the donors all totally oblivious to this or or did the donors, you know, work closely with them? Um also, by the way, the companies that worked with them, um you know, did they did you know, what what did they know about what was happening? And so, I, you know, I do wonder whether there's like a you

know, I I I wonder whether over time what we're going to discover is this was a you know, sort of sprawling network, um you know, of which there's you know, a legal the legal term would be conspiracy. Um you know, that was that was going on around this. And so, I I think this needs to be full full fully addressed. Um you know, look, the other thing is, you know, this raises the obvious question is were

were they the only one? Um and so, there's a variety of these groups that had, you know, degrees of the kind of power that I was talking about um and you know, tremendous amounts of funding along the way um and the ability to basically again direct some combination of of of state and government uh state and and and private sector, you know, sort of obliteration rays um at at at at at American citizens. Um there've have

rumors for years, you know, on I mean, there's been rumors years on this. There's been By the way, there's been incidents like this in the past, like, you know, this isn't the first time this has happened. Um but, you know, if if if the if if the allegations are true and the SPLC was doing it, I think it raises the very direct question of like, okay, who else who else is It's hard to believe they were

the only one. Um and so, who else is doing it? And then yeah, and then we're back to our astroturfing thing, um which is yeah, we're you know, we're we're we're were they constructing the boogeyman, um you know, that that that they claim to be fighting. And by the way, and this is where you get into the sort of self-interest component of it. This is where you get back to the suicidal empathy thing, which is like,

okay, how how's how suicidal is it if you're the anti-KKK group to fund the KKK? Like I I don't know, maybe it's suicidal if people find out about it, but if they don't find out about it, like, that's not that's like the that's like the opposite of suicidal because like, wow, like, would you know, wouldn't you like to get to like, if your if your group's entire purpose for existing is to fight an enemy, then you

need to make sure that that enemy exists. To do that, of course, you of course of course you would fund them. Um and so, yeah, you you I don't know, what is that? That's like the reverse of the snake eating its tail. Um it's the um you know, sort of a you know, you're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. >> Um and so, it Yeah, I mean, look, we're going to I I mean, this all needs to

be ventilated. Um I'm I'm really fascinated to see like what the reality is underneath this. But, you know, by by at the end of the day and what this means about what we've all been told all these years about all these groups. It's it's funny. There was a Nathan Fielder sort of AI, you know, video that looked so real, which is he's basically saying, "Hey, our business model is to fight racism. We need to fund more

racism, uh and then we'll get more business." Yes, correct. Exactly. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, and one of the things is they're lucrative. And again, it's because they get they get cloaked in this kind of NGO uh lens. I mean, they they they've got you know, the amounts of money at play are not small. Um you know, they're they're very very you know, so I don't know, the the SPLC has something like an eight $800 endowment, um

and you know, has an enormous budget. Um and by the way, people get paid a lot of money to do this work. Um and and by the way, there's recurring scandals on that front, also. Um you know, which is um you know, you get you get a lot of these kind of activist you you kind of foundations and so forth, where when you when you look into it, it's like, you know, some some giant percentage of

the uh of their of their of their spending is going to, you know, uh salaries and and and expenses for their for their employees. Um and so and again they get they kind of they they cloak it in, you know, they cloak it in virtue. Um and then you kind of look underneath and you're like, "Wow, like this is this is you know, this is this this is a like And by the way, like I don't

know, it's America, maybe they should be allowed to do all this, but like maybe we should not get, you know, maybe we should not get lied to in the process. You know, may may may maybe all this should not get them dressed up to make us feel like, you know, our our whole society is rotten and immoral. And that and that and that you know, deplatforming and censorship are anti-banking are are good ideas. You know, what

people respond of course with, "Hey, this time is different cuz it's it's all it's all potential cognitive work." And so uh and then there's also this other statement of, "Hey, um you know, humans will you know, differentiate among taste and agency, but it seems like AI can can can do that, too." Um and and then there's all that juxtaposed, there's this also this statement of, "Hey, uh it won't replace a lot of the jobs cuz a

lot of jobs are make-work anyways." Uh you had this, you know, tweet the other day of, "Hey, I've I've been saying companies have been, you know, two to four x bloated for a long time, but people have just been unwilling to to to to deal with it or or look at it in the face. So, I I this presents kind of a golden opportunity for that." What um So, why don't you address some of these some

of these topics as relates to AI and and jobs of the future as relates to tech? Yeah, so we'll come back to the bloat thing. I will say that the funny thing on the bloat tweet was uh the responses have been along the line The responses for the for most part have not been, "You're wrong." The responses have been, "Oh, no, the company I used to work at is like eight x bloated." >> [laughter] >> Yeah,

too generous. Right. Or yeah, too generous. Or you know, they're not you know, or by the way, the nonprofit or the you know, whatever the you know, whatever kind of institution you know, agency I used to work for. >> Twitter proved it, right? Cutting 70% or 80% and then it's running, you know, better or as good as it was before at at least in it's probably not the only it's not the exception. I I mean, look,

I don't even know and you know, I'm if I knew I wouldn't say, but like I think Twitter's way down >> [laughter] >> from the 80%. Right. I think too. I don't know if the number I have but for sure the number has a nine on it. If not if not a if not a high nines. So, yeah, no, he's really he's as usual with Elon, he's really demonstrated he's really a forecaster of the future through

his own actions. Um Yeah, so yeah, so a couple of things. So, one is I mean, look, there's just this endless you know, there's this endless I mean, there's literally been a 300-year argument about about about about mechanization, industrialization, technology computers software replacing human labor, causing unemployment, you know, lower wages and unemployment. You know, it's it's been a 300-year argument. I I you know, quite frankly, I'm even wondering at this point whether it's even worth having

that argument cuz people really really deeply don't want to hear it. Um and what I find is I I I you know, I go through it. Many other people by the way, there's great books on this topic and there have been for hundreds of years. Um and people have talked about this for a long time. You know, people really This is one of those things where people really don't want to hear good news. Um and so

you know, it's it's actually even hard to have a discussion about it cuz people actually won't They're they're so dug in on this that they actually won't even engage on the topic. They just keep repeating the same kind of repeating the same fallacy over and over again. So, So, you know, we we could go through that. I guess the the more interesting thing to say though is just like we have data now. Um and you know,

cuz now we now now we have AI and now we have data. So, we can like look at what's actually happening. Um and I would just make a couple of observations. Um so, one is there was actually jobs jobs data just came out today. Um as a situation to monitor and you know, it's sort of unexpectedly good. Um and so you know, you know, and by the way, the the the jobs data overall in the last

couple of years has been has been interesting because the federal government has actually shed, you know, has shed a lot of workers. I think the federal government is down estimates are as much as 400,000 workers in the federal government since Trump took office the second time. So, so private sector employment is actually way down and then private sector employment is way up and then the net result I think for the last quarter was actually very positive.

Um and so like it is in other words like the the reported jobs numbers are even more impressive than they look because the private sector growth actually has to make up for the public sector decline. Which means the private sector job growth is actually much better um than than people were expecting. And again, like this is in the face of like actual AI, you know, staring us in the face and you know, being being rapidly adopted.

And so okay, like the data's, you know, there you know, there's more data. Um and then the other thing that you know, that's sort of macro data. And then there's the micro data which is the world we live in. Um and the micro data is, you know, that sort of obvious question is, you know, if you live in Silicon Valley or work in San Francisco, you undoubtedly have friends who are, you know, computer programmers. Those friends,

you know, some percentage of those friends are early adopters of AI coding. Um you know, you would you would you you can just observe their behavior. And of course the if you believe in the, you know, kind of the the the lot I, you know, kind of zero sum argument, you would expect that they would be working less and less and and then rapidly become becoming un you know, and getting paid less and less by the

way and be rapidly becoming unemployed. And in fact, the observed the observed behavior of what's happening is very clear which is the opposite. Uh which is those people are becoming uh what we now refer to as AI vampires. Um by which I mean um they're they're the individual programmer's productivity an individual programmer uses, you know, Codex or Copilot Code or one of these AI coding systems. Just the thing that you just now see over and over

again at at at at at at on the ground level is they're working harder than ever. Um they're they're working just like more hours than ever. And then the AI vampire thing is literally this thing where they stop sleeping. Um and and then when you when you when you like talk to them, it's actually really funny um because um they're like they and I have a whole bunch of friends like this. They're bleary eyed and they

got these huge bags under their eyes. They're completely exhausted. Um and but they're like euphoric. Like they're thrilled. Like they're having the absolute time of their life. By the way, a fair number of people who we we both know, you know, literally they're they're former programmers who stopped coding at one point and then all of a sudden, you know, have picked it back up again. And then, you know, actually we have partners. You know, you and

I are partners at the firm who actually have never coded who are now like ripping out software like crazy. And and again, they're they've they've turned into >> [laughter] >> they've turned into AI vampires. I won't name names cuz I'll let him tell his own story, but we have one partner who's built an entire AI system for everything that he does at work and he is absolutely excited about it and it's it works great and he

loves it and it's like his partner in all of his work now. And I asked him I said I said have you have you looked at he he vibe coded the whole thing and I said, you know, have you looked at the have you looked at the code and he's like, hell no. >> [snorts] >> You know, I've never done that and I said, you know, have you have you ever looked at any software code and

he's like, hell no. >> [snorts] >> He doesn't have it you know, he's not he's not a programmer by background. And yet all of a sudden he's he's he's he's hyper-productive. And so you've got this you got of course the phenomenon which is sort of exactly what classic economics would predict which is if you increase marginal productivity of the worker, you don't have a diminishment of human work, you have an expansion of human work. You make

the worker more productive therefore the worker works more and gets paid more and there are more more jobs in the process. And so it's it's it's the opposite of what of what of what all the doomers say. So so we're seeing that at the level of these individuals and then and then by the way, what you see kind of inside companies inside employers of these individuals is of course these people are now in even more demand

than they were before. They they are they are garnering higher salaries than they were before. And and then by the way, by the way, their productivity is just is just starting to ramp up, right? Like that that everything that I'm describing in like, you know, like at our leading edge companies estimates are that the leading edge programmers are like 20x more productive than they were a year ago. Like it's like a it's like the most dramatic

increase in programmer productivity in like ever. And and so again, logically people get paid according to their marginal productivity and you're also seeing that track in the compensation data. I'm seeing that on the ground in the companies which is the the more hyper-productive a coder becomes all of a sudden, the more bargaining power that they have um you know for the for the compensation and we're we're seeing a comp uh for those people ramp up quickly.

Um and so I I just it's it's just kind of like it's just kind of staring us in the face. And and and coding of course coding is like the first domain in which this has happened. Now people want to project forward and say this is going to happen in every area of knowledge work. Um uh and then um you know I I think you can predict a similar outcome. And then that gets us to the

blow topic um which is of course the the the other thing that's happening is of course companies announcing big layoffs. Um and and then you know of course it's like you know two two plus two must equal four and so if it's AI coding it must therefore translate into into layoffs and you know Mark you're wrong you know therefore all of your ideas are wrong cuz that's evidence that the you know these companies are wiping out

their um you know they're they're they're reducing their their workforces or or or really nuking them because of AI coding. And I and I guess there again this is like maybe the inside inside baseball take on it is but I I see it I see it uh up close which is just every every major Silicon Valley company is overstaffed. Um every major Silicon Valley company has been overstaffed basically forever. They all know it. Um there's a

whole variety of reasons why it's the case. Um by the way I think this is true basically of just like you know corporate America broadly. Uh you know companies broadly. We we we we can talk it in in detail about why that's the case cuz it it flies in the face of the idea that these companies optimize for profits which they definitely do not. Um like the the one thing that is the least true claim in

the world is [snorts] the companies are optimized for profitability which is 100% not true. Um uh and so um and so you know and then you know basically if you're going to do a big cut like if if you want to do a big cut if you want to take out you know whether it's 15% or 40% or whatever like obviously you want to you want to scapegoat right? You just you you want to peg it

on something. Um and so of course it's going to get pegged on AI. And again it's to say like it's not like it's not like it's just like a straight lie. Like it it it is simultaneously true that there's there are these massive you know for the same amount of coding you can now have fewer people using tools. Like that is true. And so do you need as many aggregate number of programmers if you're generating the

same amount of code? No you don't. And so you can take out people um on the other side. And so, there is truth to that. But, what that misses is is what what happens on the other side of that, which is of course you're not just going to be generating the same amount of code in the future. You're going to be generating a lot more code. You're going to be building a lot more products a lot

more quickly. Um and that and that's going to fuel, you know, enormous amounts of employment growth on the other side. Um and so so as so I I I think you're seeing both uh basically both both both phenomena play out. And And you kind of have to read the announcements coming out of these companies in code uh because of the the kind of those two the way those two dynamics are crossing. Yeah. Um that's that's well

said. There was a article that was going viral in our circles the other uh week about the jobs of the future. Um and uh Yoni Rechtman he said there's there's there's possibility that the only jobs in tech companies are going to be one, product engineer {slash} vibe coder {slash} slop cannon. Two, uh you know, infra security systems. Three, a the adults in the room, you know, like legal and finance. And then four, hot people uh {slash}

per- per- personality hires. Um what what what any any any truth in there or what you know, what what what do we make sense of this? And what do the what do the hot people do exactly? Uh range sales people, uh you know, customer support. Uh there will always be an important place for those who present a easy UX to the world and are pleasant to be around. There are many ways to be hot. Otherwise known

as the pharmaceutical sales rep. Yes. >> [clears throat and laughter] >> Yes. That's or the Oracle or the Oracle sales rep. So um yeah, so uh yes, exactly. So, um yeah, I mean look, this is going to happen like the Well, well, not literally that. But, like the jobs are the jobs are going to change. I mean, this this is sort of the obvious thing and this this always happens. The jobs are going to change. You

know, by the way, say there's like a nascent concept that that is actually playing out. I'm seeing it in a bunch of the early leading edge companies in the Valley, which is they're they're kind of circling around a uh uh a a job title loosely called builder um or or something like it. And And basically the idea is that you had these separate jobs in the past of uh programmer, product manager, and designer. Um and I've

I've been describing what's happening in the Valley companies as sort of this three-way Mexican standoff uh where the programmers think that they can they don't need the the product managers and the designers anymore cuz they can have AI do that and then each of the other two doesn't think they they need the other two either. Um and and what I've been predicting is like that they're all they're all correct. Um you know, the the the the

product manager can generate code and design now and you know, so each of them can do the job of all three. Um and so the idea is yeah, the jobs change. And so now now the job is builder. Um and you might come into the builder you might get on the builder track by coming out of coding or product management um or um design or or maybe even something else, customer service. Um or whatever. Um and

um and and and but but you you then become responsible for building, you know, building complete products. Um and and and again you have this kind of, you know, you're you're super empowered by the the the the AI that can help fill in um all the things that are not directly in your background. Um and so I like I think I think it's entirely possible that we're sitting here in 10 years, you know, in 20 years

or whatever and like the, you know, the the job of coder is gone but you have this just, you know, extraordinary number of number of builders running around. And again, by the way, this is the historical pattern, right? And so um I think our partner David David George uh did a post um on this this week but it's I forget the exact numbers but it's something, you know, some some giant percentage of the jobs that existed

in, you know, call it 1940 were like gone by 1970. Um and they were like ancient history today. Um right? Um and I mean the ultimate example of this is, you know, United States 200 years ago like 99% of the people in the US were farming. Um and today it's like 2% and having, you know, grown up in farm country I can tell you all these people who worry about, you know, job loss and job change

would not like to go back and be farmers. I guarantee that. And particularly they would not like to go back and be farmers the way people were farming in 1800. Like they definitely don't want to do that. Um and so the the new jobs that have been created of course are far better jobs um and that isn't to, you know, understate the the level of, you know, kind of stress in in in in individual people's lives

as as the economy changes but in aggregate the result is evolution towards um you know, towards towards higher income and and um and sort of more um you know, jobs that people are are are happier to do. Um By the way, you can also see all of this playing out in the American economy broadly um which is the the American economy is um the the there again there's this kind of and there's this kind of doomer

narrative or there has been for a long time that like the American middle class is is is is is falling apart and the the sort of presumption of that is that all the middle class people are kind of falling off the ledge and becoming becoming lower class. But actually the by the way there is some of that and you know there's there are communities in which that's very clearly happening. But having said that there there is

at least as much or more of the other phenomenon which is people in the middle class climbing the ladder into the upper middle class um and you know rapidly gaining um in in wealth and income um and um um and and and just and again just like quality of life um you know for for themselves and for their kids and their grandkids um you know as time passes. And and and and that is a consequence of

actual economic development and technological change and job transformation actually being allowed to happen um is you know 20 years later you're you look back and you're just like oh thank god like this is just a much better world uh you know for for me and my family than it was before. Um and so I is why like I'm so I like I I think you know god willing like we're entering a golden age on this topic

which is AI is going to be a superpower that everybody in the country and everybody in the planet is going to have access to. Everybody is going to become far more capable at whatever it is that they that they that they want to do. Um they're going to become far more productive in whatever line of work that they're in. Um they're going to get you know they're going to get compensated the economy naturally compensates according to

according to productivity. Uh so they'll they'll they'll get they'll get compensated that way. The you know there will be a rapidly rising ladder of of of of both incomes and number of jobs. And and my my prediction again consistent with history is the extent to which that's a positive phenomenon is a function to the degree which it's actually allowed to happen. Um and and then of course Europe is is going to run the opposite [snorts] you

know test which is they're going to try to prevent all this from happening and and again I think the data's already in there which is there you know they're they've been they've been falling very badly behind economically and they're going to continue to fall further and further behind uh the US and and it's and it's it's a tragedy cuz it's a 100% a self-inflicted self-inflicted wound. Yeah. The um It's well said. You were also we've we've

talked about and you've written about how AI psychosis. There's an AI psychosis summit apparently happening. I'm not sure if that's real or a parody. Um I haven't looked into it, but I'm I'm curious how how you make sense of this phenomenon. You've also written about so you you you tweeted the other day sort of the opposite of AI psychosis is is cope AI cope. Uh maybe we can talk about the both sides. Yeah, I also identified

earlier identified the concept of AI psychosis psychosis. >> [laughter] >> Which we can which we should also talk Yeah, let's unpack it as well. Um yeah, so first of all, the AI psychosis summit did in fact happen. Um I was not there, but I am assured that it did. Um some very very smart and creative people put that on in New York. I think late last week. I think maybe about a week ago. Um and uh

it was an art it was like an art it was essentially an art project and it was basically our our artists and creative people who were um who got together and like fully indulged their uh their AI psychosis um >> [snorts] >> in the in the form of creating new art uh using using AI and um I I yeah, I would definitely recommend people should should should go uh check out [snorts] that go go on go

on X and search on AI psychosis summit and take a look cuz it's it's it's incredibly creative. And I and I I think it's fantastic cuz it's it's you know, it's a it's a you know, it's a it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but also it's it's a you know, there there is a real split that's developed in the artistic community, the creative community in Hollywood um and there are people who are staking out kind of very

extreme positions on pro AI anti AI. Um and uh it's generating a lot a lot a lot of heat um and and so this this was a nice I I think this was a nice example of like out no, actually like in a in a world of AI like creatives are going to have again, creatives are going to have all these superpowers. They're going to be able to create all kinds of art uh that wasn't possible

before. Um and then of course, you know, the the this whole topic you can create art about this topic. Um uh so I I thought that I I think all the stuff that was there was very creative. Um yeah, and then uh yeah, so so uh yeah, so okay, so my concept. So so AI psychosis. So AI psychosis is a is a is a pejorative. Uh so AI psychosis is the idea that um if um uh

if if uh it's the idea that basically people get whammy by the AI. So the [snorts] you know the the classic example is through what's called sycophancy. So it's basically like you you know you tell Claude you've discovered a you know a new you know you know you have a new idea for an anti-gravity machine and Claude says, "Oh, that's amazing." Like that's amazing. Like you've achieved a giant breakthrough in physics. Like nobody else has ever

thought of this before. You are an underappreciated genius and you know I it's so unfair that you couldn't get admitted to the you know physics department at MIT and you know you know they're all going to feel like completely stupid when they see this work that you've done. Um and so you know kind of people go down this rabbit hole and and I and again I in fairness I should also say like if he if people

are prone if people are prone to delusion and and an AI is overly sicko sycophantic like then it it is going to feed delusions and so there is a there is kind of a kind of serious element to that among people who are kind of predisposed to that kind of thing. Um but but but again it's like okay yes there there should be some number of those cases but that causes kind of AI critics or AI

doomers to basically say anybody therefore who reports a positive productive experience with AI has fallen into AI psychosis. Right? So anybody who actually is like wow my productivity is way up or wow I really have a thought partner for the first time in my work or wow I really have been able to produce something that I never would have been able to produce before. You know that that's sort of all bucketed under you know they they

all have they all have AI psychosis. Um which I which I and then that led me to my my my my kind of my kind of AI cope right which is the other side of it which is like AI cope is classifying anybody who has a positive experience with AI as being in AI psychosis. Um and and and and you know AI cope is this thing where in you know concentrated in certain places on the planet

um where people are just like absolutely hell-bent on proving to themselves and everybody else that this whole thing is a complete you know fraud fake you know it's a it's a term stochastic parrot AI AI fake it doesn't work. Um and if anybody's having a good experience um you know they they must be full of it. Um and so that's the AI cope um and I would describe the AI cope is people who are basically dismissive.

Um and then and then AI psychosis psychosis is the people who get really mad. >> [laughter] >> The people who froth at the mouth. Um and so they they maybe it's it's it's a I code but with a with a uh with a different loading. Um and then look, all of this is going to become just like so much more intense over the next several years um because, you know, look, the the reality is that that,

you know, the large language models that we had between call it 19 Yeah, or sorry, 20 call it between like GPT-2 to GPT-4, something like that. Uh maybe 4 and 1/2. Like you know, they were they were fun they were fun. Um you know, you could they could you know, compose Shakespearean rap lyrics or whatever you want. Um you know, you could have very interesting late night conversations with them. Um but you know, the hallucination rates

were high and you know, they weren't good at reasoning and so forth. Um and they couldn't write code very well and couldn't, you know, do math very well and you know, were were too prone to stick up in seas and and so on. And so I I think what happened is a lot of people a lot of skeptics basically used the early models um and got a and got a let's say accurate but um but um

uh early and and therefore lagging view uh of the actual quality of the technology. Um and then, you know, you fast forward to today um and you know, what May May of 26 and we have, you know, just stellar absolutely stellar, you know, models now like, you know, the the GPT-5.5 is just, you know, extraordinary. Um and then we have reasoning models on top of that and we have uh RL um you know, uh reason you

know, RL um post training happening with in all in all these different domains. Um Uh you know, to get kind of deterministic uh high quality work out of these things and then we have, you know, now we have agents. Now we have long-lived agents and now we have just in the last week uh you know, GPT has this new thing um uh the the goal feature of of Codex um that is is letting people literally run,

you know, run projects have have have have Codex go off and do projects for, you know, you know, 24 hours or longer uh without human intervention. And so the the the the actual, you know, what what what we see in our job is like the actual utility of these things is like ramping incredibly quickly. Um and by the way, it's really good today and ramping very fast and we and every other I think serious company in

the space expects the rapid capability to be very rapid, you know, at least for the next couple years. Uh you know, like we we have like I think line of sight to for sure it's going to ramp dramatically. Um the capability is going to ramp dramatically. And so um so I just the other thing here is just like a lot of people uh I don't know either skeptics or people who just don't know what to think.

Like if they tried it 2 years ago, they don't understand what's happening today. If they tried it 6 months ago, they might not have a good uh idea of what's happening today. By the way, if they try the free version, they might not have a good idea of what's happening today. Um or if they try the version that's bundled, you know, into their whatever. Um uh you know, they might they might, you know, that just is

like a free add-on to something. They're not going to have a, you know, to to to really it's just like anything new. Like to to really understand this, you have to be directly in front of it. Um the the good news is like that that literally means you have to be able to put out $200 to get the to get whatever is the the, you know, basically the premium package on any of these things. So it's

like not that much money if you want to get up close to these things. Um but I I would, yeah, if anybody, you know, I don't know, we have a selected audience of people who are probably believers, but anybody who's a skeptic on these things, I would just say it's really important um to be face-to-face with the actual technology um and to and to to be face-to-face with it now and not have a lagging view. Right.

And state-of-the-art. The What do you say to people or what do you say to the idea of like, you know, apparently, you know, the NPS of AI in in this country was like 30% or something like that it came out recently is pretty low and they're comparing it to to China where where it's much higher. I'm I'm I'm curious what what you think is the source of of why it's currently low and what could a strategy

to to boost it look like? You know, some people have suggested economic incentives like, you know, some sort of like Trump accounts tied to AI companies, like a basket that people get access to to feel economically aligned with it in a more direct way even though of course, you know, it it will increase the, you know, GDP and economy in ways that they'll also benefit from. Others say, "Hey, we actually just need to tell better stories

around the impact that it's having on, you know, in people's lives, their health, and their education, and just the the the, you know people having a tutor or people having a lawyer or people having a doctor you know who couldn't afford one otherwise. Um what do you what are your thoughts on the sort of AI sentiment perspective? Yeah, so I would separate two two two things. Um so I would I would separate sentiment and sentiment is

is as interpreted through polling. Um and we'll talk about that. And then and then you and then I bring it up to the separate it out though which cuz you you use the term maybe inadvertently NPS uh which is net promoter score which is which is more um their view of actual actual product use product use from us, right? NPS for people who don't know is a is a term of art called net promoter score and

it's like it's basically the most high-quality way to find out whether somebody really likes a product which is you literally ask them would would you would you recommend this to a friend. That's that's that's called the NPS rate. And so but I but I bring I bring that up of course because there's a big difference between those, right? Um and so >> Everyone's using it and benefiting from it couldn't live without it and yet Well, exactly.

This is the thing this is this is the thing. So so and and and by the way this is a very common thing and so like in in in properly conducted social science like proper like every social science 101 textbook will tell you that you cannot just ask people what they think. Um you you you will get back all kinds of crazy I don't I we'll talk about why that's the case but this is like this

is very standard social science methodology which is you never just ask people what you do is you watch their behavior. Right? And and what you do is then you want to what what you want to do is we're going to look for the gaps between what they say what they say they believe versus what what they actually do. And and this is true like universally for all form of human behavior. But for example if you're studying

let's say mating patterns, right? Like you know who people date and marry. Like it's just been well established forever that the thing that they say that is their criteria list I mean you know we all see this with our friends, right? You know our our friends all start out single with a certain criteria list and then and then they marry somebody like completely different. And so it's like okay, you know who who do you believe me

or your lying eyes? Right? Like who do you believe what do you believe? What I told you I wanted or what I actually demonstrated that you know that that that I wanted. And and this is basically true for all areas of human behavior. But this is like fairly you know this is a fair you know this is this is one of these sort of slightly counterintuitive ideas that you have to kind of have been trained up

in it and have seen examples to really understand. And so what what is of course, people don't people don't know this or they forget this. Um and then what happens is there's there's there's like there's literally just like a poll and somebody does a poll. And then the poll comes back with like results. And it looks and it looks like, you know, in the poll in the results it looks like, "Oh, if people say that, then

that must be the case." Um but then you you get into this thing which is like, okay, first of all, you're asking them what they think as opposed to watching their behavior. And there's this there's potentially huge delta there. And then the other thing is everybody in the world of polling will tell you like you can basically make a poll say whatever you want. And And this is one of the reasons why you have to look

at what people do is because you can make a poll say whatever you want. In fact, there's a whole category of poll that's called a push poll. Uh push poll, p o l l, push poll, which is you you word the questions in a way to generate the answers that you want. Or you word the questions in a way to actually cause people to think differently than they did before the poll. You know, so the political

example of a push poll is, you know, would you continue to support your favorite candidate if you knew that he, you know, was killing kittens in his spare time? Right. And so Right. Right. And so, number one is people are going to say, "No, of course I would not support him." And then number two, people are going to say, "Wait a minute, I didn't know he killed kittens in his spare time. You know, that's horrible." Right.

Um and so so in polling you you can manipulate these things in all kinds of ways up to and including what people actually think. So, it's really really dangerous. And then you overlay on top of that the media environment. And of course, the media environment is, you know, as we you and I have discussed many times, like the what you know, what is the thing the press hates the most in the entire world? Um you know,

is is tech. And And of course, what is the, you know, vanguard of tech right now? And one of the one of the one of the things is AI. And so, the of course, the press hates AI with the fury of a a thousand suns. And so, the press is running this, you know, sustained, you know, kind of fear campaign on AI. And so, if you just if you like drown the the audience with negative narratives,

um and then you ask, you know, basically these these loaded polling questions, of course, you're going to generate I I mean I I we can pick any topic. We can pick like fluffy bunnies running in the field and we can produce the same thing. You know, don't don't you know how much they Like I mean, you can just do all kind of, you know, they chew up all the crops. Everybody's going to die from hunger. Like

you can manufacture a negative result on anything uh by how you do this, which is the the exercise that that that these people have been on. Um and and the reason I'm confident saying that is because then you look at what they actually do. Um and of course, what they're actually doing is they're using AI, they're using it a lot, they they love it, the NPS scores are like super high, the usage levels are super high.

Um the By the way, the usage the the the the the the churn levels are shrinking, the the the the recurring usage uh patterns consumptions are are rising over time. Um you know, which is which is really important. Um and people love it. Um and people love it in the same way that they love their cell phones and in the same way that they love their Netflix and in the same way that they love their uh

you know, the same way that they love their um social media and it's the same way that they love their ice cream and like people, you know, people love it. Now, you If you poll somebody and you ask, you know, do you you know, would you think ice cream is good for you? They're going to say no, but like at you know, late at night they're going to be in there with, you know, their their carton

cuz like ice cream is delicious. Um and so it, you know, it's the same thing with AI, um which is yeah, people people are using it, they love it. The, you know, usage numbers are speaking for themselves, the growth rates of these companies are speaking for themselves. You know, look, this is the fastest category of technology in the entire history of the world, right? In terms of growth rate of usage and and revenue. Um so it's

it's speaking for itself. And so so basically what you have is a you have this project fear campaign. Um and I would say, you know, maybe two things added on to that, which is uh you know, number one is it's like the thing that is like I was saying, not helpful is that the companies themselves have been running the fear campaign. Um and so, you know, the fact that certain companies um have been, you know, sort

of for a variety of reasons running a fear campaign is certainly not not not helping any. Um and and again, this is we're paradoxes. They're running the fear campaign while they're actually building the thing that they tell everybody to be afraid of. And so, you know, there's again, a little bit of a watch what I watch what I do now, not what I say. And then it's like, yeah, should the industry have like better narratives? Like,

yes, almost certainly the industry should have better narratives and better spokespeople and so forth and so on. But just like, okay, like fine, yes, I'm sure that's true, but having said that, that is not like that would make the fear campaigns go away. It's not like that would make the press coverage go away. It's not like that would make the the sort of fake polls go away. Um I'll close on one final polling observation, which is

David Shore, who's a by the way, a very left-wing, very progressive pollster, but very well respected, uh just did a a a different kind of a different kind of poll, I think much more properly constructed, where he asked Americans to stack stack rank the issues that they really care about. And I I I believe it's I'm pulling out this out of the top of my head, but I I believe AI ranked as number 29. And so

and and again, it's just sort of like you once you once you get out of the bubble of like everybody must think through this stuff, it's just like of course AI ranks as number 29 cuz like it doesn't hit it's having no tangible impact on anything relative to issues 1 through 28. Right? Like just obviously Americans are dealing with like more important issues in their daily lives than AI. Like obviously. Like they're dealing with energy costs

and they're dealing with crime and they're dealing with like any number of drug addiction, like any number of other things they're they're more worried about. And like and by the way, and like everybody knows this who like lives a normal life is just like I I this is not like the thing that I'm worried about. I'm worried about like I you know, I how am I going to make my house payment? Like much more fundamental things.

And so you know, what's what's happening at my kids' school. You know, my my you know, much much you know, what's what's what's happening with my health. Like what much more central things. And so I I think I think if you if you get if you get to the smart polls and the smart pollsters, they they also end up debunking this. Speaking of things that are not you know, urgent on people's day-to-day life and yet capture

the imagination whenever they they there's news about it, UFOs. So [laughter] there was some some some news that came out. Yeah, I don't we haven't spent a ton of time talking about this topic. So I'm curious for your general how have you kind of perceived this topic when there's been news out about it over the over the years. I remember during during COVID, you know, Mike Solana our friend was was coming out and and really sort

of getting excited about the news that was being reported then. What what's been your vantage point and and what do you what do you think about it now? Yeah, so I should start by saying I don't so I don't know anything. So I'll start start start by saying that. I I know nothing that everybody else doesn't know. Um So I'll start by saying like number one, I want to believe. Like I my my usual thing on

this is I I I want to live in the world in which this is a real possibility. Um And by the way, I was I was I was actually I I would Okay, AI psychosis. I was in AI psychosis the other night. Um and I was like I was talking to one of the one of the bots and I was like, "All right, how many galaxies are there in the universe again?" And I don't know if

you've like looked it up recently, but like the number keeps growing and I forget what the number is, but it's like a giant number. And then I'm like, "How many stars in in in each galaxy?" And then how many planets? And then how many Earth-like planets? And and I the number I don't have at the top of my head, but if you if you get do address it like, "How many Earth-like planets are there in the

world in which a human being could like step out of a spaceship and breathe and be fine?" It's a staggering It's a very very very large number. I mean, it's it's it's almost uncountable number of Earth-like planets just in in the statistics. And so it's like, "All right, like, you know, it must be the case. Um you know, that there's there's there's there's there's other other stuff going on out there." Um and so, you know, logic

logically like that makes sense. And then I I would love to live in a world in which they figure out a way to, you know, at some point get here hopefully in a in a in a peaceful way. Um you know, having said that, you know, that you know, that as you know, the the problem with this space is, you know, generally as you get close to the details, you know, the the the examples tend to

fall apart. Um and, you know, there's all these like and then the classic example is like the UFO. Like what what appears to be like a, you know, you you'll have these things where like a US military aircraft or something will have a camera imagery that looks like it's tracking a you know, rapidly moving and really maneuvering object. And it's it's just like, you know, you get you get close enough to that and look at the

details and it's, you know, it's like the there's like a parallax optical illusion thing that pop pops up. Um and then there's artifacts, instrument artifacts, camera artifacts, imagery digital imagery artifacts. Um and then there's, um you know, like literally like weather balloons and ball lightning and all these other things. So, like Yeah, so I I haven't I I would yes, I want to believe. I haven't seen the one yet um that um is uh has tipped

me over it. I I would I would like to. I will I will there's big release of new information today. Um it it is really fun by the way to have the official White House X account being tweeting transcripts of interviews with US intelligence officers apparently relaying accounts that they've had. So, I will be up late reading tonight, but um you know, finger fingers crossed. Yeah. Fr- Friends have said something to the effect of "Hey, it's

unclear what's actually happening, but what is clear is the government is or at certain times has has hid certain certain materials. Why would they do that if if if there's nothing to really worry about?" So, I don't know how much of this has been fully validated and I'm not really an expert in it I would say like my like I think two things are pretty clear at this point. I think one is that, you know, there

have been classified you know, there have been classified you know, that when when stealth when stealth fighters and bombers are being developed, you know, that whole program was like incredibly highly classified and so if they were going to do test flights and something like that, you know, they were they were going to have to like do anything they could to prevent people from realizing what was actually happening. Um and so, you know, you know, for sure

there were class- lots of classified aerospace programs over the years that that would have had various kinds of cover stories or various kinds of you know, they're let's just say blankets of of of of suppression of information you know, kind of placed over them because it's like the most you know, some of the most highly classified information in the government. Um you know, that would cause people to kind of think that there's information being hidden. I

mean, Area 51 was of course the classic example of this for a long time. Which was a you know, which is which is the whole Area 51 thing was around basically these classified test flights for for new new aircraft. Um and then and then and then at least you know, there are suggestions. I don't know if this has been validated, but there are suggestions that at different points in time the government might have put out UFO

stories as as basically as an actual over cover story. Um and so, you know, what if you're a you know, if you're a let's let's say you're a highly capable military intelligence officer whose job is to make sure that the stealth flight, you know, doesn't become you know, recognized for what it is because it would you know, if that would be very bad for national security, then you'd much rather have you know, basically a UFO cult

kind of get built up around it where people get all you know, kind of crazed and freaked out about UFOs. By the way, for two reasons. One is to give people a story to believe that's not that you have some new breakthrough military technology, but the other thing is it it make and this is actually maybe the serious observation. Um uh if you can build if the argument would be I think if you could build up

UFO cult around something, then you make any investigation into that topic something that people feel like they can't do. Right? Um and and and my understanding is by the way this was true for a long time even in the US military, which is um if a US, you know, Air Force pilot, you know, or a commercial airline pilot by the way thought that they had seen something weird, I think for a long time a lot of

pilots didn't want to report uh what what they, you know, what they had seen because they didn't want to be viewed that they were like UFO nuts. Um and of course if there are actually UFOs out there like that is a very big problem. Um or by the way if there are just other kinds of things out there, right? You know, if there's, you know, if the Chinese are testing some sort of new advanced, you know,

high-speed drone or something, you know, you want the pilots to be able to report that even if they, you know, think that it might get mischaracterized as a UFO. Um and so anyway, like I I don't know, maybe maybe maybe the the the the the interesting thing we could say on this is um all of this played out in the old media environment. Um and so like all of this played out in the world of broadcast

TV and then um you know, on a sort of official programming on the one hand and then to the extent that there was like unofficial media, it had to be in like mimeographed newsletters, right? Or like paperback books. Um and you know, when I was a kid there were all these like crazy UFO paperback books. Um you know, and you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, the the the the books that

said there were no UFOs, you know, were were in hardback and the books that said there were, you know, many UFOs were in were in paperback. Um so uh you know, in the maybe maybe the the the smart thing you could say is in the in the in the new media environment this this is yet another example of like these these these old walls just collapse. You know, the Overton window just disintegrates. Um and so of

course, you know, the new media environment is extremely conducive to the spread of every UFO theory in the world. Um of course, it's also extremely conducive to the to to the spread of propaganda campaigns if you wanted to, you know, like I said, if you wanted to hide real information by spreading propaganda. And then of course, the the the the builds, you know, very much along the lines of the Epstein thing, right? The the the pressure

builds and builds and builds and builds until it's at some point, you know, the you know, you get you know, you get somebody in the White House who's just like, all right, screw it. Like, we're going to rip the band-aid off and find out what's actually going on. Yeah. You know, now, you know, assuming that they're not still fuzzing >> [laughter] >> fuzzing fuzzing fuzzing the details. But, we'll leave that to the next turn of the

of the situation. Exactly. Um we'll stay monitoring. We'll we'll close on a a last couple of questions from the chat. One is um advice for young graduates. If if if you were uh in college today, you know, you of course were at the forefront of the internet revolution at the University of Illinois, what would you be studying or would you even be in college you know, today in 2026? What advice might you have for uh for

college students uh you know, sort of trying to make sense of how to prepare for for what's to come? Yeah. So, it's basically gain AI superpowers. I I think it's actually, you know, very straightforward. It's like, okay, you you you have you have you you you you have the enormous stroke of luck um that you have arrived at the moment in which there is this new capability for augmenting, you know, human uh ability on on on

a thousand fronts at the same time um that's just dropped into our laps um and it's going to get much better from here um and, you know, enormous numbers of people who are supposedly older and wiser than you are are going to dig in their heels and they're going to be mad about it and they're going to fight it and they're going to not want to do it um and, you know, you are going to have

the opportunity to have this be something that is absolutely key to your skill set um and key to everything that you can accomplish as a professional or as a creative um you know, for the for the for the next 50 years. Um and so, I would just like lean in as incredibly hard on that, you know, walk into every job interview with like, you know, here's my whatever portfolio, resume, whatever. Like, here here is here is

how I use this technology. Here are the capabilities that I'm bringing um you know, to the table. And by the way, you know, some employers you'll talk to will they'll, you know, they'll fuzz out on that and not not not not respect it, but you'll you know, other employers will be like, wow, like that that's clearly, you know, this is exactly what we want. Um and so, this is a this is a actually this is actually

it's funny or this Douglas Adams, the the great uh science fiction novelist. He was there he said there's a there's a he said there's a repeating and this was like by the way pre-AI like this is something he said like 30 years ago. He said there's a repeating pattern of how new technology is received by the different age cohorts in society. He said if you are when a new technology arrives, whatever it is in this case

AI. He said if you're below the age of 15 he said this is just how the world's always work it's just obvious. And then if you're between the ages of 15 to 35 this is cool and nifty and you can probably get a you know get a career using it and then if you're above the age of 35 this is unholy and against everything that society stands for and should absolutely be destroyed. And so I think

that um I think that I think 15 to 35 and especially 15 to 25 right now like I'm very jealous. Like I I I I I I generally don't wish I could go back in time and do things over again but I it would be really really fun right now to be 18 or 20 or 22 and to have this capability and figure out what I could do with it. And we're um It's funny we had

the A 16Z are trying to hire more more of these people because they're AI native and they're going to help us become more AI native. By the way this is the thing this is this is narrative right now and you're part of the part of the doomer narrative is oh companies are never going to hire junior employees again. The new generation is screwed because companies are never going to hire junior employees again because those are the

most easily replaced by AI and so companies are only ever going to have senior people and I think that I believe the opposite is true. I I think 100% you want the you want the AI native kids. Like the the AI native kids are going to outperform the you know the their older Luddite peers like gigantically. Gigantically. No they're their older peers who are not Luddites are also going to do great. But it is yeah no

18 year old with by the way a 24 year old or by the way a 14 year old with AI. We are going to see super producers you know the likes of which we've never seen in the world. So Yes by the way this is going to greatly stress the this is going to be another big point of stress on all the child labor laws. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Yeah exactly. Let me just say let me

just say the children yearn for the AI minds. Yeah. Yeah, they're uh yeah, absolutely. The um speaking of, you know, we talked about Zoomers in previous episodes and and and why you like them in terms of, you know, they just have so much courage um and and are are willing are sort of kind of fed up cuz they grew up in, you know, COVID school and all all these sort of, you know, adjacent sort of uh

you know, sort of impositions. And um but one thing you quoted me recently was Chris Arnade's uh sort of post around the uh you know, the people talk about the educational divide but there's also generational divide in terms of boomers being just much more um sort of confident in their sort of truth and younger people being more uh sort of post-truth relativistic more pluralist. Um I I thought that was really interesting sort of uh epistemological divide.

What did you find interesting about about her or how do you see that play out? Yeah, so there's really two parts to it, which is very interesting. So, part number one is um a lot of boomers um uh the Somebody once said the definition of a baby boomer is somebody who believes what's on the TV set. Like they believe what the talking head on the TV says. Um and like anybody who's 20 knows that you obviously

don't do that, right? That that would be stupid. Um but every, you know, 60-year-old or 80-year-old has been watching TV their entire lives and when they grew up, you know, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's the old story we've all heard a million times. Walter Cronkite used to tell us what the truth was. Um it right and, you know, it's of course that was always BS but nevertheless that that was what the boomers believed. They

they believed what the TV said. They believed what the New York Times wrote. Right, so it's you know, the the the the the the the the they believe these things. Um you know, any anybody below the age of 40 like just at this point has example after example after example of how like obviously that's just not true. And then anybody who's like 20 who's been through the last, you know, 15 years in school like just obviously

knows that, you know, these people are fake and you know, this is not real and you just can't take this stuff seriously. Um and so um so so so part of it is that divide. And so the the the boomers had um uh by the way, there's this great YouTube account that there's this amazing video on this. There's this great YouTube account called Academic Agent. Uh, it's just a it's a British author named Nima Parvini, uh,

who writes these really interesting books. And he but he has this two-hour video that's really worth watching. And it's it's it's called Boomer Truth. Uh, and so it's like a two-hour documentary on kind of this concept he calls Boomer Truth, which is basically like whatever the TV says. Um, and I was falling apart. So so they're sort of they're sort of the Boomer Truth thing. Um, but then there's this other thing which is like a key

part of Boomer Truth is that there's no fixed morality. Right? So so so like a key part of Boomer Truth is you get to make up your own values. Like all cultures are the same moral relativism. All cultures are the same. Western society is not superior. You know, there's many many different cultures. They're all wonderful. Like it's all great. It's all great. It's all great. If anything, the West is the worst of the cultures. The other

ones are better. You know, just like that was such a like before there was woke there was political correctness. And like the political correctness of like when I was in like college it was literally around what's called multiculturalism or >> Peter Thiel and David Sacks wrote about it in their book, the you know, Diversity Myth in 1995. Diversity Myth. And it was it was it was actually a it was actually a term that it's called multi-culti

multi-culti multi-culti multi-culti multi-cultural. And there were these furious debates. There's there's a book with a classic book of that era. Peter's book is great. But actually before that there was a famous book at the time which was huge headline news all through the country when it came out called the the closing of the American mind. >> Yeah. And it was this sort of this sort of right-wing academic at University of Chicago who basically said these these

colleges are teaching these kids that there is no there is no more you know, there is no morality. You know, it's all just basically morality is just choose your own adventure. Um, and so there there is this moral relativism that's kind of at the heart of Boomer Truth, right? And so so it's this weird thing where it's like there is a a fixed received belief that there is no fixed morality. Um, and so if you're on

the and then basically like the entire media apparatus, the entire cultural program, the entire educational system got designed around this. Um, and all of the stuff all of the crazy stuff that you know, kids are getting in school now is basically you know, downstream of downstream of this movement from you know, 30 40 years ago 60 years ago. Um, and so if you're yeah, if you're 20, you've just like come up in this sort of like

weird environment in which you know, on the one hand you're just like the boomers have no credibility at all cuz like I can't believe they still believe what's on TV. And then number two is like to the extent that they we do listen anything they say, they keep telling us to not judge anybody. And not judge anything and that all all all moralities are equal and all cultures are equal. And so of course they're going to

of course their consumers are going to come out of that with like just like an incredible level of skepticism. And then by the way, this is not an abstract exercise because these are the these are the kids who came up through COVID. Right? And these are the kids who came up through woke. And these are the kids who came up through like all of the all of all of the craziness of of the last you know,

of the last decade you know, 15 years. And so I I think these kids are just coming out with like a completely different viewpoint on how the world works. By the way, you know, not in every case but like in many cases. Completely different like much more I would say much almost like simultaneously more open-minded and more critical like much more interested in ideas, much more much more skeptical of of authority, much more skeptical of received

wisdom. Much more cynical about about manipulation. By the way, much more sensitive about the media environment. You know, they're they're much more aware of the idea that there actually is psychological warfare going on and they have been on the receiving end of it. You know, much less much more skeptical of authority. You know, they just you know, their their view of the authority figures that they've seen in their life you know, in many cases is just

like complete contempt. And in many cases very well earned. And so yeah, it's just a it's it's just a it's a starkly different I think it's a starkly different worldview than the than the for sure than the boomers had. Also very different than my generation Gen X, also very different than millennials. Like it's something new and and I'm I'm very excited. I think I think they're fantastic. Yeah. Speaking of something new, would it be fair to

summarize maxing as stoicism meets you can just do things? No, I think it's just you can just do things. >> Okay. >> [laughter] >> Like I think it's even like I think it's even it's even I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I think I can see what you're driving at and I I think you could probably explain it that way, but I think I don't know. The way I put it is the Stoics put a

lot of time and effort into trying to be stoic. >> [laughter] >> Whereas the whole point of maxing is you're not supposed to put that level of time and effort into being the way that you are. You're just supposed to do it. Um and so yeah, I guess you could say our friend Ryan Holiday is a stoic and not a maxer. >> [laughter] >> Um uh as he demonstrated this week and so um maybe maybe right

there in that in that in that in that in that video you can see the difference. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's well said. Um last question from the chat, we'll get you out of here. How are you such a good monitor? How how what is your secret to monitoring so many situations? Any strategies? What is your approach? Well, of course being plugged into the MTS fire hose. Of course, absolutely critical. And of course, the amazing tools that

the team is developing and putting online. Uh is fantastic. I have been glued I've been among other things been glued to the uh the coverage of the uh of the uh OpenAI um uh trial this week um on on on Is it empty uh MTS? Is it MTS.com? Okay, yeah. Yeah. Um uh so um yeah, for sure that. And then yeah, I mean I'm at you know, I'm I'm I I long ago plugged the back of

my skull uh wire you know, I wire jacked into uh into social media. So um I sort of you know, continuous X feed, my continuous Substack feed, my continuous YouTube feed. Um and uh yeah. And then trying to uh as usual try to try and try and try and read enough old books to try to have some kind of relevance to the to the to to to to the daily fire hose. Yeah. Awesome. Uh well, Mark,

thank you so much for coming on. Uh another great episode at TS. And we'll see you back soon. See you soon. Okay. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Mhm. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hey.