Solving The Sadness Epidemic w/ Mo Gawdat | EP #56

29:11We built a model together that worked. So I became the happiest person that you know. I shared it with friends and family. They became super happy, right? And it was that mixed the balance between my hyperanalysis and his heart, basically. And you sort of know somehow that, you know, it was life sort of preparing me, if you want, because what was about to happen was basically the biggest test of happiness, if you think about it. And it was 2014, Ali was 21 and a half at the time, the pride of a father, honestly. Beautiful handsome, kind, wise, yeah, a little bit of fun in his life, but not without responsibility, loved by everyone tall, broad shouldered.

30:05And he calls us, he, Ali played in a band at the time, that was actually quite successful in Dubai. And they were opening for abandon the US. And he calls and he says, I feel obliged to come see you guys before the US tour. So he said sure, we'd love to have you. We flew over to Dubai four days later he was admitted to a hospital with an inflamed appendix. And yeah, it's the simplest surgical operation known to humankind, but somehow it was Ali's day to leave. So the surgeon did five mistakes in a row. All of them preventable. All of them fixable. And if you know had any one of them fixed properly, you'll be fine.

30:51But yeah, he did five mistakes. He didn't fix them properly. And so four hours later, my son's vital organs were shutting down one after the next and he left our life. And you know, you'd think about it and you'd say, Okay, that's it. I mean, and if you had hugged Ali once, I promise you, you would not blame me if I spend the rest of my life crying, you know, and I still cry even today eight years later, but but it is miraculous what happened because

31:28Today's after Ali left, hey, my daughter comes into my room and she says papa Ali had a dream and he told me about it And he didn't tell anyone else, but I need to tell you. Okay, so I said, what baby? She said two weeks ago, he called me. He lived in Boston, she lived in Montreal. And he said, I dreamt that I was everywhere and part of everyone.

31:55Which in a lot of... In a lot of spiritual scripture afterwards, you recognize that the description of everywhere and part of everyone is death. is to disconnect from the physical so your outside space time. So you basically have access to everywhere and part of everyone. Anyway, so she said that to me and she said, he said, I felt so good that I didn't want to be back in my body. And remember, at the time, I'm Chief Business Officer of Google X. I had started half of Google globally. I understood everywhere and part of everyone very well. I was responsible for expanding Google to 4 billion users.

32:40I knew everywhere and everyone very well. And so in my business man's mind, the only thing I heard and it sounds crazy is that Ali was giving me a quote. He was basically saying, make me everywhere and part of everyone. And so in a minute I found myself saying, okay, have you be considered done? And I went out and I decided in a very simple mathematical calculation that if I got Ali's essence, what he taught me about happiness to 10 million people, then waited 70 years through six degrees of separation, a tiny bit of Ali will be everywhere and part of everyone. 72 years, just if you want to review the mess.

33:25And so I went out and I wrote, so I'm so happy. with the attempt of saying, this is what my son taught me about happiness, or at least what we worked on together. And there you go people, if you just, you know, retain one tiny bit of that book, then part of Ali's essences within you. Hopefully you'll teach your children or to your best friend or to your sister, and then Ali will be everywhere and part of everyone. And so the universe complied. Six weeks after the book came out, my videos were viewed 117 million times. And it was very clear that the message had audience, an engineering approach to happiness.

34:07And that Ali's essence was spreading everywhere and part of everyone. So we went from 10 million happy to a billion happy as the target of the mission, which I think is, you know, reasonably ambitious to take the rest of my life, basically. And here we are. Eight years later, starting, it's still working on everywhere and part of everyone. It's beautiful. And there is no greater mission. I remember many conversations and one we've spoken about that I had with Larry Page, who is CEO of Google at the time. And he was on my board at X Prize and we're talking about what X prizes we should launch. and he said, we should do a happiness ex -price and probably influenced by your work.

34:52At the end of the day, what do people want if you ask them to boil it down? They want health and they want happiness. There's nothing more fundamental than that. And I think happiness even before health, if you had to optimize one because health without happiness is very empty. It's quite interesting that you say that I never thought of it before but if you do, again, the swap test and your health is not amazing, but you're happy. I'd probably pick that over my happiness is miserable and my health is fantastic. Yeah, I think so. I don't want to pass over the tragedy and the launch pad for this incredible moonshot.

35:37I mean, I cannot imagine a more difficult challenge. A human being and a parent can have been losing such a loved child. And as you've said before, you wouldn't change the outcome, given the mission that it is launched for you. Oh yeah, it's, it took me, it took me time to get to that because in Solve for Happy, I have this thought experiment that I call the Eraser Test. Yes. In the eraser test, I basically say, if I gave you a technology that would help you pinpoint one of the painful points in your past and literally erase it from space time, not from your memory, but from space time, would you erase it?

36:26Right? And I normally, I, I, before COVID, I used to train people face to face, so I didn't, I maybe spoke to 20 ,000 people with that test or more. And, you know, everyone, I would first tell them pinpoint a painful moment in your past. You know, think about it. Remember how much it hurt you. Now, here is the eraser technology. Would you erase it? Everyone would say, yes, until I say, but remember, if you erase it from space time, you're going to erase everything that came as a result. Okay. Every friend you met as a result, everything that you learned as a result, everything. Right? So you're going to become a different person as a result.

37:02would you erase it? 99 .8 % of everyone would say, oh, in that case, I won't. It was very painful then, but look at where it got me now. When I wrote the eraser test in Sol for Happy, it was two years after Ali left before we published the book, three years actually. In the final edits, I still wrote, but I would choose to erase Alice death. Okay? You know, or at least I'm still struggling to not erase Alice death. Alice death. Until 2019, I was speaking at an event called Wisdom in Business if I remember correctly. And I went to the event early in the morning and I was mingling the whole day and I was the closing fireside chat if you want.

37:55And Martin, the host was a friend, so he hosted me for the fireside chat. And he spoke about how what Losing Ali got me to be on that seat in front of him. And I found myself weeping on stage, literally weeping. I think it's on the internet. Because throughout that day, I had been hugged around 400 times by people that came to me and said, you saved my life. And, you know, in a very interesting way, I think Ali and I and my daughter are the biggest love of my life. Right? And I will tell you openly, I never expected that any other love would replace the love of Ali. But then life works in a very interesting way because 400 hugs of people that genuinely loved me.

38:55Yeah, that's not too bad as compared to his hug, okay? And interestingly for the first time I found myself saying, no, I wouldn't erase Ali's death because in a very interesting way, if you knew Ali, if you knew my son, and you had come to him before he walked into the operating room and you said, Ali, have you be? If you, if you give your life now, 50 million people will find happiness, would you? You would say, he would, I assure you, he would have said, kill me right now, right now. Okay? That's the kind of person that he was. And when you really understand death as I do, I don't believe in the religious doctrine of the explanation of death.

39:40I think a reasonable understanding of mathematics and physics would tell you that we never really buy. You go into this in the last couple of chapters of the book, you go into this in detail, the analogies of the game universe, the video game universe, which you understand. You're gaming universe. Yeah. And then also just the convergence of the Big Bang theory relativity, you weave an interesting conversation around modern physics and life and death. Yeah, I think the hyper specialization of science and the scientific method in itself, respectfully not addressing metaphysical issues, prevents us from linking our understandings of physics at a fundamental level to our understanding of life and death.

40:30And in my personal assessment, I don't think we ever really die. It's not that I don't believe, I don't think, I think with mathematics and physics evidence, you can easily understand that life preceded the physical and life will outlast the physical. Now, what form of life is that? An interesting way of imagining it, even though it's not imaginable. is a video gamer controlling an avatar on the screen. Right? The avatar goes through a disastrous experience. Like, you know, everyone's shooting at it, it's being squished by cars and falling in lava and it's like a horrible experience, but the gamer is sitting on a red sofa in the background and just having the time of his life.

41:24Okay? Unaffected by what happens to the avatar. And I think my understanding of even if you drop that understanding of death by the way, if you just take the reality we know about death and the reality we know about the illusion of time, I know for a fact, for a fact that I will be where Ali is right now sooner or later. Okay. I have no guarantees whatsoever that I will live half an hour after we finish this conversation. Right. So the only certainty I have in my mind is that wherever my son's Non -physical form because I think it's very difficult to deny that there are things that are not physical that actually exist Right love is not physical and you know you can't believe it or you can't prove it with the scientific Method but love exists.

42:14We know that right. There is an element to us consciousness call it You know a soul or spirit like the religious just establishment tries to call it whatever, there is a non -physical side to you. The side that dreams, the side that connects to a human and say, I love Peter, even though you and I physically have not spent a lot of time together in the physical world, but we connect somehow. And all of that non -physical side to us is not governed by the physics and the physical of our world. And that non -physical side of us is perhaps the observer, the life form that brings the physics to existence.

42:59As we know in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, that you need to observe something, observe it with what? Observe it with a non -physical awareness of existence. To bring it into existence. In the book, you actually define the happiness equation. And I'd like to dig into that a little bit because you are an engineer, you are a scientist and you are a solver. And coming up with an equation that guides you and how you think about happiness. And the equation is fairly simple. Yeah, the original version wasn't. Let me show you all of that. We simplified it for the book, but the first one had 19.

43:44was the simplified version still valid compared to the 19th. Yeah, actually, actually, I'm so happy we simplified it because it then hits you like a ton of bricks with a lot of clarity really. It's pretty, pretty basic. Would you please recount it? In its very simple terms, nothing has ever constantly made you happy. Okay? So, so rain doesn't always make you happy. Rain makes you happy. If you want to want to water your plants, it makes you unhappy. if you want a sun -based, right? Rain makes some of our listeners very, very happy if it's her ex -boyfriend's wedding, right? And when you really think about it, there is no inherent value of happiness or unhappiness in rain, okay?

44:26So when you look at that from a mathematics point of view, you say, okay, so the equation is not some kind of a parameter or a constant multiplied by R rain, okay? There must be something else in play. And when you really think about it this way, So you start to realize that rain makes you happy when you want rain. It makes you unhappy when you don't want rain. So basically, you know, your happiness is the result of a simple equation. Your happiness is equal to or greater than the difference between the event, your perception of the event that's taking place, and your expectations and hopes and wishes of how the event should be.

45:07It's events minus expectations. It's that comparison that happens in your head every single time. So I'm sure every one of our listeners, around every minute or two during this conversation, would sit back for a second or, you know, as it's playing and say, is this worth my time? Okay. That assessment of, is this podcast worth my expect, is what I expect to spend an hour on? Okay. If it is, you have a positive feeling and you continue. If it isn't, you stop. Right? Or at least you have a negative feeling while you're listening to it. And so events minus expectations is a very simple equation. Of course, if you want real mathematics, you have to break what events are and your perception of them.

45:49If you want real mathematics, you have to create what creates expectations and it's doable actually in math. But let's keep it at that. Events minus expectations. Right? Now take that and go into definitions because we engineers, we love the finish. What does that make happiness? Happiness becomes a moment in your life where your perception of the event of your life is meeting your expectation of how life should be or beating it, okay, which is a moment of calm and peaceful contentment. It's not a moment of excitement, it's not a moment of elation, it's not a moment of physical pleasure, it's not a moment of hallucination while you're on psychedelics or whatever that is, okay.

46:29It is a moment where you're okay with life as it is. Right? When you're okay with life as it is, we're going to call that calm and peaceful contentment. You're back to your baseline, you're back to your happiness. You're back to that child. Yeah, you're back to that child that's sitting on its back saying, I have all of my needs met. Everything's wonderful. Okay? Now, let's take another definition because that's where the confusion comes from. There are lots of other positive emotions that are associated with pleasure and fun and joy. Okay? You know, So basically you go to a party and there is music and you have a couple of drinks and you know you're not thinking about what's making you unhappy.

47:06You're running on the treadmill and you're feeling energized, then you're not feeling unhappy. And so those moments are moments of what I call the state of escape. These are moments where you can manage to numb your brain long enough that your brain stops solving the happiness equation. Your boss might be very annoying as long as you're thinking about your boss being annoying. You're not able to enjoy happiness or find calm and peace. You go to a party, a couple of drinks, music, you're shaking your hips a little bit, they're not thinking about your boss and everything's wonderful. No happiness equation, no disappoint.

47:45You said something there important, which is your brain is constantly solving for this happiness equation. It's the only equation your brain is made for. is what's going on meeting or beating my expectations constantly. And that's fascinating in itself. Because there are two survival mechanisms. Most people think that we only have a Cortisol and adrenaline and the stress response as a survival mechanism. So your Cortisol and adrenaline when a threat or a challenge approaches you is the turbocharger on your engine. It just, there is something that you really need to put a lot of energy into for a very short period of time.

48:33And so you, even beyond turbocharger, you put nitro in the engine, and you just run away from a tiger or you solve a big problem or whatever. This is one survival mechanism, but it is the odd state compared to the anomaly. It's the anomaly compared to the node. Now, the other survival mechanism which we ignore is rest and digest. Okay? If your brain is basically saying, I scanned the world around me. And there is no reason to be afraid. Remember, these are programmed in the caveman and woman years. Okay? So you're always hyper -visual. You're always alert until you get to that moment of calm and peaceful contentment to say, I looked around me, there is nothing to be afraid of.

49:22I can now rest, digest my food, replenish my muscles, close my eyes and reflect and even sleep. When you're doing those things, you're rebuilding your survival machine, which is your body itself. So happiness in that case, that calm and peaceful contentment is the ultimate state for us to survive in the long term. Now, when we're having fun, it's quite interesting, huh? When we're having fun, we get positive emotions as well. But while happiness is associated, happiness as calm and peaceful contentment, is associated with serotonin in your blood, okay? Serotonin is a calmer, it's a hormone that says exactly that.

50:03It says, you can chill, that's serotonin, okay? When you're having fun or you know, getting some form of a pleasure, you're getting dopamine in your blood. And dopamine is mistakenly on the internet defined as one of the four happiness hormones, it's not. Dopamine is a reward hormone. So it's rewarding you for a certain, non -essential survival need. Sex is important for the reproduction of the species. So you feel good when you're having sex, not because anyone will die if we are not having sex. Some people will, but most of us won't. But the reality is, you know, you're simply being rewarded to propagate the species.

50:49Now, the problem with dopamine is it's addictive. It literally is a drug. So when you have dopamine in your blood, your brain receptors responsible for detecting dopamine, they down -regulate. So if you have 100 units of dopamine in your blood, your receptors will say, okay, 100 it is normal, next time you want me to feel the same way, give me 110. Now, when you get to 110, 110 is normal, give me 120, right? So they downregulate. And so you keep pumping that drug into yourself by wilder parties and if the running on the treadmill doesn't cut it anymore, you jump out of an airplane. All in search for that moment where you managed to numb your brain long enough so that you don't think about your problems.

51:34Now, here's the interesting thing. when we were locked down in COVID, okay? Some people became extremely depressed. Why? Because suddenly you stopped their supply of dopamine. You said, okay, you have to be locked down now. You have to find a way to find your own apartment piece. You can't go to a party to do it. You can't do extreme sports to do it. You can't do this. You can't do that. And suddenly it's with drool symptoms. Right? So nothing wrong with, by the way, with any of those activities. Nothing wrong with fun, nothing wrong with joy, nothing wrong with pleasure. Wonderful. They're all positive emotions, but don't use them as a pink color.

52:13Don't use them as a drug to replace your happiness. Use them as a supplement. Find your happiness, find your calm and peaceful contentment, and then add all of those positive experiences just because you're healthy already, give yourself joy in life so that there is no reason whatsoever to be unhappy. It's a different sequence. It's beautiful in understanding the neurotransmitters of the brain and serotonin and dopamine for sure helps evaluate what you're saying. What would you say to individuals who say, well, then the trick and the, to solve the happiest equation is set low expectations. Because if you have low expectations, I'm always going to exceed them.

52:57And that seems like a sort of a, an anti -capitalist view. Well, it's, you know, we're, it's not only anti -capitalist, it's, you know, societal across the board that one should try and do better, that one should try and achieve the most they can for themselves and their families. But there is, if you have a look, expectations in your life and you are constantly exceeding them, But that seems like a false solution for the equation. How do you say that? Yeah. So differentiate expectations and ambitions. Okay. So when we achieved 10 million happy as a small team that started the mission. Okay. The next moon shot was a billion happy.

53:43Right. If we were to set, you know, expectations to be, we would have gone for 12 million instead of 10. Right. A billion is a very large target. Okay, now here's the trick. A billion happy is not a target. A billion happy is an ambition, ambition meaning it's the reason I wake up in the morning, directionally look at what I should do with my life and attempt to go as near as possible to that place. But it's directional meaning if you do the mathematics of it, it's actually quite interesting. If you just assume that in my lifetime I need to reach a billion happy and we're not depending on the low of accelerating returns.

54:24Okay. You know, hopefully this podcast will be heard by half a million people. That's a very bad day for the mission. Okay. Why? Yeah, because to get to 10 billion, this is not a very good use of the time. Right. Now, when you think about it, however, if I made one person happy on this podcast, if I made one person go like, oh, that's interesting. I didn't think about that before. That's a mega win for today, right? And then accordingly, there is a difference between setting extremely high ambitions to stretch you and get the total potential of who you are versus setting realistic targets. I'm one human, okay?

55:07And I know something that may not register with everyone. And some people might actually think of what I'm saying as who's this idiot, you know, doesn't work that way. And it's fine, absolutely fine. All I can do as a target is to tell myself when you wake up tomorrow, you're going to do the absolute best that you can with in your capability to research this topic, to get to the bottom of it, to talk to others, to learn, to share. And if you make one person happy, it's a good day. If you make a million happy, it's an amazing day. If you make a million that will tell a million, then you've made it.

55:42And that was the design of the mission. So the design of one billion happy was simply if every person tells two people about what they learned and then make them promise to tell two people each, then we've built an inverse Ponzi scheme and within seven years we reach a billion happy. And that's been the mission. The mission has been all about, and I ask our listeners to do that. If they've listened to something today that made them think, share it with two people, Tell them this is important and if you like it share it with two people. Every two people told two people, we reach a billion happy in five to seven years.

56:20So let's talk about your one billion happy because I think it's fascinating. You know, in my parlance, Mo, I call this having a massive transformative purpose. Right. Something wakes up in the morning, keeps you going through the day. It's clear. It's emotional. There's an emotional energy. We are emotional beings and driving you to an objective. and then on the canvas of your MTP, we have moonshots, which are clear measurable objectives. So increasing happiness in the world and sharing the lessons learned from your son, but the 1 billion happy is a moonshot on that massive transformative purpose.

56:59How do you measure it? How do you measure 1 billion happy? Because that's, if you can't measure it, it becomes a challenge. And we've talked about this a little bit, And I want people to hear it so that they can participate in this moonshot as I do. We measure two things, but we're not blinded by them. We measure a transformative message that you receive the message that reshaped you. And then we measure that you took action based on that message. So it's very easy to measure that the message was reached or reached people. It's, we live in a world today where you can count video views, where you can count three doors where you can count.

57:37So that's easier. And the message is very straightforward. The message is happiness is your birthright. Don't believe what you're told. That happiness unhappiness is a reasonable tax to pay for success. That's crap. You can be successful and happy at the same time. As a matter of fact, if you're happy, you're more likely to be successful. So the first message is it's your birthright and it's so predictable that it follows an engineer in modeling and equation. And if you do the work, you'll be happy. That's that's the way you said something important. If you're happy, you're more likely to be successful.

58:10And just a good next mission point on that. Who do you want to hang out with as an individual? I went hang out with happy people, right? Yeah. And when you're around happy people. So, so you know, when we were at Google, right? And you could get sushi in Charlie's Cafe. Do you think that this was because Larry and Sergey are the nicest people on earth? I mean, they are really nice people. But do you think that they were giving sushi to everyone because they're nice? No, it's because happy Googlers created amazing products. If you don't have to rush out in the lunch hour and go try to find a place in If you just walk in a lovely place and sit with like minded people and you know have sushi for lunch and have a wonderful Conversation what were you going what are you going to be talking about?

59:06Gmail ads and draw it right you're going to be innovative you're going to Feel happy in that place. So you're gonna stay longer. You're going to dedicate more of your effort people will love you more They'll help you out more right happier people so Stanford did a study actually that said happier people in general are 37 % more productive. So it's not happy at work or happy at home now. I don't think you can separate them. But if you're happy by definition, you're more productive. Less sick leaves more energy and so on. Now, the funny bit, however, is that we somehow are brainwashed to believe that cover of the time magazine, whatever, the guy with the striped suit crossing his arm and very angry and saying, people work better under stress.

59:58Like fuck that, who ever told you that? The best work we've ever done is not under stress. The best work we ever do is when we're in flow, when we are working with incredibly creative teams, when we are, you know, what, if you're talking about an engine with, with, with pistons and at, yeah, when you stress the engine more, you'll get more RPMs, but that's not, we're not like that, humans break under those conditions, right? The best work we ever do is when we're enjoying the hell out of it. With people we enjoy, right? With people we love. On a purpose, we love. Yes. Yeah, right? So, so let's go back and say, when you realize that, you realize that happiness, we were measuring that, one billion happy.

1:00:42I want people to recognize that. I want, I want people to say, forget what I was told. It's my birthright. It's important for me. And I can achieve it. It's engineered. That's number one. Number two is we measured that they took action and we measured one of two actions. Action number one is they either invested in their own happiness. So they got the message and they started to say, I'm going to do the work myself, okay, which is very easy. You know, someone that watches a video and then watches other videos related to the topic, you know, purchase a book to what you will listen to my podcast, whatever that is, or that they invested in the happiness of others, right, which is really what the billion happy machine is all about.

1:01:22It's, you know, tell two people who will tell two people. So you can measure shares, you know, of posts and content. You can measure, you know, people who take initiative and create their own posts. You can measure people who will write a blog about it like, you know, you're kind, you kind of mention me in some of your blogs and blogs and so on. That basically means that people took the mission to heart and they are actually taking the action. So if you measure objective one alone, we probably are in the hundreds of millions of people reached. Right? You know, videos and posts and so on. But that doesn't count as a billion happy.

1:02:00We're measuring the two together and I think we're in the 50 some million people reached. Right? So people who got the message and took action. Does that mean they're happy? No. But they're happy here and they're engaged in the topic. You know, it's this juxtapositioning of being happy versus being successful. It's a false dichotomy. All right. And I want people to realize that that your innate right to be happy is fundamental and shouldn't be maximized. And if you are happy, you're fundamentally going to be more productive and more successful in life. And I think a lot of the entrepreneurs watching this podcast are driven by these outside external objectives of wealth or followers or companies started.

1:02:51And at the end of the day, are they happy? Is a question they don't give themselves time to ask. But it's one of the same. And I think the biggest challenge in our life today, even with the smartest people I know, is that the smartest people I know becomes the best possible at managing the system that they were told they need to play with them. Nobody ever stops and says, I don't like this system. Okay? So you tell someone in California, I used, you know, I lived in California for a while and, you know, it's the only place in the world where when a boy wants to impress a girl in a date, I would be sitting in cafes and a 16 year old boy is talking to a 14 year old girl about should self -driving cars be a centralized, you know, system or each car.

1:03:47And I'm like, wow, like this is an amazing place, right? But the reality is this 16 -year -old will grow up to believe that the only way to go through life is to build a startup and raise money and succeed and become a Larry Page, right? Which is one way to go through life when there are a billion other ways, right? A billion other moon shots that could revamp your life entirely and revamp the world entirely. I mean, the reason why AI is such a big topic for me is because we will be the best at creating incredible AI when no one ever stops and says, should we create AI? So now that the system is put in place and we're now told this is going to be the next big thing.

1:04:35Everyone is rushing like a maniac to make it. And no one is stopping and saying, is this the world we want? It's the more is better disease, right? I just want more More correct everything and more and more and fitting in within what I'm told more is so I I One billion happy. I want to be a happiness billionaire. I want to be a billionaire, okay? And it's part of my programming as a as a you know as an entrepreneur to grow whatever it is that I do, but it's no longer dollar signs. You know, can someone stop and say, I will use the skills I will start to build something that doesn't comply to the system.

1:05:18And this is where the problem lies. The problem is, every one of the people around you, and I'm sure, because I met them too when I was in California, a lot of the people around you that you know very well that I know very well that people dream to spend half of our heart, half an hour with, okay, are miserably. Yeah, are miserably. They are. It's incredible. Some of the people who've been on this podcast who are the most successful individuals in the planet who are the, you know, prototypical billionaires who are changing the world at the end of the day, at night, when they reflect on it, they're driven by demons.

1:05:54And 100%. They're pursuing these objective goals and promises and moonshots. And it's been true for me too. when I've gone after things that are big and bold and they're going to fail by definition, if you're setting something big enough and you're pursuing it and you put yourself out there. And it's okay taking moonshots is incredibly important, but it is not a life that's going to be filled with constant joy and happiness. And which moonshot, which moonshot, right? is building what is the new meta thing Instagram? Metaverse, oh, no, it's red. Instagram slides or something competing with, yeah, threads.

1:06:38Seriously, does the world need another Twitter? Another photo sharing app, right? Another photo sharing app, is that? And then how many followers in the world will say, this is the next big thing I need to be part of it and they'll dedicate an hour of their life to it. versus how many people will say, this is just meta trying to compete with Elon Musk. It's as simple as that. Do I want to be part of that competition? Or, you know, isn't it enough hours that I'm spending on that, you know, demon? And I think the trick, what I'm trying to say here is, there is a conscious decision that is involved in happiness, happiness is a choice.

1:07:17It is a choice. And you choose the line at which, and yeah, again, I'm not going to deny it. We are in a position of privilege. I have a roof on top of my head. I have a reasonable potential to be asked to speak at a speaking engagement that will pay me or I will have a reasonable potential to start a startup at any point in time. I started so many of them that it's likely that my next one will be funded. it's likely that it will get money and make money and so on. And so, you know, we're in a privileged position. But at the end of the day, the question is, do I want any of that? Well, you know, or am I happier with my black t -shirt and a lot of love?

1:07:59We all have one thing in common, all 8 billion people on the planet. You know, 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, 365 in a year. It's how you use your time. Exactly. Your time invested and what will you invest it in? And one of the challenges is, Who do we have as heroes in life? Who do we want to emulate? You know, when I was growing up, it was a lot of my friends, a lot of the most brilliant friends of mine in my high school and at MIT went on to Wall Street become investment bankers because that was the perceived, you know, ultimate objective. And now it's been a lot going becoming entrepreneurs.

1:08:39We don't ever see the individual who proclaims are happy and measure that and say, I want to be like that person, right? Because we all want to pursue this material objective or this fame, you know, who do we hold as famous on the planet and who do we celebrate? Because at the end of the day, who's your either? Who's your either? Who are you going to waste your heartbeats in your late? So I wrote a blog once that basically says the only asset class you will ever own is heartbeats. So you come and it's interesting because you come to this world with your highest wealth. So if you live to be 60 or 70, you know, you have like four billion heartbeats and they decline over time.

1:09:34So, so every, you know, people listening to us now will probably waste, I don't know, 60 ,000 hard bits, which might not appear to be a big number compared to the 4 billion, but there are 60 ,000 freaking hard bits, okay? Are you better off wasting them on Peter and Moe, or are you better off using them to spend time with your kids, or are you better off, what do you call it, crisis news network? Yes, you're right. Are you better off spending it on CNN? Are you better off clear about the games for there? You know, you know, binge watching Game of Thrones. Yeah. Right? And I'm nothing against Game of Thrones, nothing against, you know, but those hard beats are the only currency you will ever have.

1:10:23Okay. And for most of us, I mean, I felt blessed because my middle age crisis happened when I was 29. So I had all the money I wanted, had the most beautiful woman on the planet as my wife. I had two wonderful kids, I had the cars, I had everything. And you know, a middle age crisis honestly is not an age. It is a state where you've been climbing a ladder all your life and then you look, you get to the top of the ladder and you go like, holy shit, it was the wrong ladder. Why am I, what am I doing here? Or when you get to the top and you look around, all you see is more mountain peaks and it's like an infinite amount of climbing to be done.

1:10:59Exactly. We'll ever satisfy you. Exactly. And so, you know, when in my life, I basically said, okay, I don't want to chase that anymore. Yeah, I still commended the world and I, you know, in a way, I succeeded more and I made more money and so on, but I was never owned by that success. That success was the byproduct of what I was completely lending my heartbeats to. And I think the question really is if people listening to us take anything out of this conversation is next weekend sit down and reflect on how many of your heartbeats last week were spent on what? Just build a small pie chart. And tell yourself if I continue that way for the rest of my life, how much time will I spend with my kids because I will tell you hands down and I don't you know, some want to sound preachy here.

1:11:57But when Ali died, the only thing I regretted in life and I will never regret anything more is I then have him enough. Yeah. And and and freaking life doesn't give you that notice. It doesn't tell you, hey, by the way, Ali's now 16. He's going to die on his 21 and a half. So start hugging him. It doesn't when he's 21 and a half he leaves, right? And then suddenly you look back and my ex -wife, my wonderful ex -wife, when Ali died, we were sitting and flipping through a photo album. Okay? And she's so wise. So she flips through the first few pages where Ali is an infant and she says, oh my God, he was such a huge infant.

1:12:38And then he died. And I'm like, I'm sorry baby that he died. and she said, and then this little child came, you know, four years old, you know, three years old, and he was so cute and witty and so on, and then he died. And then this teenager came, okay? And then he was so irresponsible and playful and, you know, into music, and then he too left, and then, you know, serious university student came. And, right? And that one also died. And the thing that we don't recognize is that I will never be in my 20s again. We're working out for an hour a week, gave me a six pack. I will never be in my 30s again, where I could sit down and code a piece of code that can make me money.

1:13:24I will never be that. And all of those hard beats that are wasted. If I told you you have 10 ,000 hard beats left, what would you spend them on? Yeah, you would spend them on love, happiness and compassion. I promise you connecting with people and spending time with those that you love for sure. I'm going to transition the conversation staying on kids. Kristen and I have two 12 year old boys and their, you know, enjoy and I will after this podcast is over. I'll be going and hugging them and spending time with them for sure extra. And one of the things that we're thinking about because they're in sixth grade and heading towards high school in a world that is very different than the world you and I grew up in.

1:14:11And I am clear that today's schooling system, set aside college, but junior high school high school is not preparing our kids for what's coming, right? Our school system is based on the industrial era. everyone's prepared for the test. Everybody is going from station to station learning things like one of our boys just had to memorize all 50 state capitals. Now it's great to practice your memorization but really how and when are you going to ever have that be useful. Especially when Google is still a dominant force. So the question I have and for those who are listeners, our parents is what should our kids be learning?

1:14:59You know, this is coming back smack into the conversation around the rise of AI. And what do we need to teach our kids to prepare them for this decade ahead? And I have a list that I've come up with, and then I went and asked, you know, chat GPT, the same question, and similar, but slightly different list. But I'd like to ask you in a world, let's call it, you know, we're in 2023. We're going to about to see AI become... What's here? Well, I'll ask you this. Ray, Cursewell, who we both know, well has predicted human level AI by 2029. There are others who are predicting it far before then, by the way.

1:15:47Right? There are those that are looking at 2025 and between 2025 and 29. So what should our kids be learning in a world of human level AI? By the way, embedded in everything, where everything is smart all the time. What are the skills? I'm amazing question and probably the most difficult question to ask now. Not for just, I mean, not just for our kids, but for everyone. I mean, if you're a graphics designer today or a, if you're a programmer, the episode with that, with I mad, with I mad, Mosh Taku's amazing Peter. It was an amazing conversation. People who haven't listened to it should go back and listen.

1:16:26You know, the world is fundamentally changing in ways that we could not understand. I think I will say there are four things that need to be educated. None of them have anything to do with what our school systems are teaching. The first and very straightforward one is jump into AI. You have to learn this. This is the biggest shift in human history. This is the biggest change in the tools that we That we use to navigate the world, right? If I told you that we now have Robotic arms that are going to be building cars You shouldn't spend any time in learning how to use a hammer to shape matter So learn how the robotic arm works the new robotic arm is AI So jump in AI, understand every part of it.

1:17:19You don't need a school to do that, because I speak about AI quite a bit. A lot of people ask me, so which book do you recommend I read, or which course should I take? And I go like, go ask Chad G .P .T. that. Why are you asking me? Seriously, you're right? And I think the idea is, like the other two, not very few people actually went to courses on Excel or email. Okay, so you play around and you're like, So this is number one. Number two is I would say that in the age of the rise of the machines, the only skill that will remain is human connection. The only skill in my personal view that will be valuable when the machines outsmart us in everything.

1:18:09By the way, it doesn't matter. I always want to bring this back. I'm sorry, I'm going to go back to number two in a second, but it doesn't matter if AGI comes out and we have the singularity as per raise the finition 2029 I actually definitely believe AGI will be earlier than 2029 But it doesn't matter what matters is if you're a graphics designer and stability AI I said you know produced stable the fusion your screwed so far, okay? we don't need AGI for your life to be disrupted heavily. We don't need AGI to replace lawyers, we don't need AGI to augment doctors and so on and so forth. This is in the making, it's happening very, very fast.

1:18:57Don't wait for that imaginary moment or that future moment to say, ah, now we're in shit, we're approaching those situations already. Now, so when all of that happens and all of those skills are replaced with humans, I would say that the most valuable skill is human connection. So take my situation. I am an author and a speaker. And in a way, a teacher, if you want. And a podcaster. So as an author, I don't think I should write books anymore. I take too long to write them. The industry is very slow to publish them. The supply demand equation of books is going to be disrupted so badly because books now can be written in 15 minutes that there will be so much supply on the market that by definition the dilution will affect the value of any book.

1:19:54In all honesty, I don't assume I'm smarter than Chad GPT. I may be a little more genuine than than chat GPT. I may be a little more original than chat GPT at least in some yeah and some of my writing but that advantage is not going to last for the next two to three years. So but if I know a concept and I have a chance to talk to you as a human Peter, I don't think the machines will reach that within the next four to five years. Right? So human connection even if the machines reach that in four to five years is what we will crave as humans. Right? There will be sex robots, but I can guarantee you will still need a hug.

1:20:33Yes. Right? There will be articles written by, there are tons of articles written by AI today. There is a ton of code written by AI today, but there is always going to be that need for a human to consult, a human to a surpper of support if you want. So that's skill number two. Skill number two is to learn how to connect to humans at a deeper level. It's a skill that has been declining since the rise of social media. In other words, are the skills that humans have to focus on connection and deliver and maximize connection. But we also spoke in our last podcast mode that AI will begin to emulate human connection.

1:21:21Correct. And the time frame for that was within the next 10 years. Oh, you're not shorter. You think? Yeah. I mean, in all honesty, I think it will become very confusing within the next three. If you remember the movie, her. I remember well. Yeah, her basically an AI simulates a friend and then she becomes quite, you know, he becomes very occupied with loving her as an AI. Okay. It's an interesting, it's a lovely story if you say that. It's one of the most positive and perhaps realistic versions of AI that I've seen out there. If you haven't seen her, please go do it. It's a beautiful construct.

1:22:07And at the end of the movie, no one's spoilt. Anyway, but the whole concept of us connecting to machines, I don't see anything wrong with that. By the way, I love the idea of being able to connect to a buddy that can help me learn things and so on. It's wonderful. I think this will shift deeply into erotic experiences and emotional experiences and romantic experiences where so many people are lonely and they'll use this to replace an annoying girlfriend or an annoying boy friend or whatever, sadly, right? But I still believe there will be a space for human connection. Okay? There will be a space where genuine human connection, the kind that you feel when you meet an old friend is still going to be very valuable.

1:22:54And I, as I said, I think this is a skill that's been eroding over the last 10, 15 years because of social media, we need to bring that back to our children. So that's number two on your list. Yeah. That was number Number three is sad when I say it, but we need to teach them resilience. And resilience, not just because of AI as a matter of fact, as I said, I don't know if we said that last time, but I say it repeatedly, we are at a perfect store. I mean, if you just think about the world finances and economics. There's never been a better match in history to the times of the Great Depression than today.

1:23:39So it seems, if you know anything about economics, there is a very deep economic crisis ahead of us. There is a geopolitical layer on top of the economic crisis that might extensuate it. There is a climate crisis that we're so far only seeing the tip of the iceberg of, you know, three million people being displaced in Pakistan last year, the Australian fires and so on and so forth. When in reality, you know, anyone with a reasonable ability to look at trends will tell you, we may get more of these. Okay. And so resilience seems to me to be a very useful skill. And resilience is not training them what to do when certain things happen.

1:24:30It's training them to respond to anything that happens. The happiness equation is the core of that. When you think about, I'll just take a couple of minutes to digress a little better. When you think that happiness is events minus expectations, then unhappiness is or any negative emotion is when an event misses your expectations. And when an event misses your expectations, your brain sounds the alarm. Oh, he said this, you know, he doesn't love me anymore. What happens? Something is going wrong. Something is going wrong. Now, we may think of that feeling as an annoying feeling. It is. Your brain is sounding the alarm because it isn't alarm.

1:25:18Unhappiness and all of its derivatives is a survival mechanism. It's your brain telling you something in the surrounding environment does not match my worldview of an optimum scenario for my survival and thriving. And so what happens is your brain is simply saying, we need to do something about this. Now resilience in my view is to actually do something about it. Resilience in my view is to take it and go through three questions. I call them the happiness flow chart. Question number one is what my brain telling me true. Because 90 % of the time it isn't, your brain is telling you what it thinks is true, but it isn't always the truth.

1:26:02You may have an argument with your son and then you will say, oh, my son doesn't love me anymore. These are two different events. The event that your brain is telling you is influenced by your fears and your conditioning and so on and so forth. While the actual event is, I had an argument with my son. The first question is, is it true? The second question, if it's not true, by the way, drop it. Don't be unhappy about anything that doesn't make you, that is not even true. Right? If it is true, the second question is, what can I do to fix it? Okay? What can I do to fix it? You know, in today's world, you may tell yourself, I'm about to lose my job because of AI.

1:26:43Is this true? Yes, it is. Okay? If it is, what can I do to fix that situation? I can upscale and find another job. Okay, I can downscale and move to the Dominican Republic and live for a fraction of what I'm I'm I'm spending in the US Right, whatever there are if there is something you can do to fix that situation. This is where resilience comes in Yes, right that's that's exactly what it is Now the third is the Jedi Master level of happiness and Jedi Master level of happiness is quite interesting It basically, there are things that you are faced with that you cannot do anything to fix. Right?

1:27:25So if the answer to the question, what can I do to fix it is nothing like there is an economic crisis coming. Okay? If you know, what can I do to fix that? There's nothing within your own power as an individual to stop an economic crisis. Okay? So the following question, which I think is the die master level of happiness, the die master level of resilience is, can I accept it and do something to make my life better despite its presence? Can I simply tell myself this is it? I can't fix an economic crisis coming, but I can take care of my kids and my loved ones and change my spending habits and sell my car and do this and that.

1:28:02It doesn't make my life amazing, but it makes it better within the current circumstances that I accept. So that to me is resilience and happiness Let's combine those three questions. And I think we need to teach our kids by example to show that level of resilience. When life doesn't go their way, they need to go, is it true? Can I do something to fix it? Can I accept it and make my life better despite its presence? This comes back to something I speak about a lot and I'm passionate about, which is mindsets, right? Your mindset, our brains are neural nets. They're being shaped constantly by everything we watch.

1:28:37Everything we read, the conversations we have, our communities and so forth. And you can have an abundance mindset or scarcity mindset. You can have an optimism mindset or a fear mindset. And just to hit on this a little bit, you know, you said we're in a perfect storm coming of these problems. But the flip side of that as well is and we have incredible tools more than ever before. We are about to have AI reinvent global education and healthcare, right? We're going to enable so much that we could not the challenges of humanity to be addressed and solved. So despite the perfect storm on the negative side, we do have the ability for people to uplift humanity, right?

1:29:23We are going to see, you know, generative AI and AGI help us with curing cancer and low cost fusion energy and all of these things. And it's the balance. it's the potential, your fourth item. My fourth item is going to be difficult to explain, but I will try as much as I can. Our brains bias at looking at difficult situations and perfect storms is biased to make it look like this is more uncertain than any other moment in your life. So, you look at the economy changing and a. I rising and climate change and the geopolitical situation, you say, this is very uncertain. Okay? Something is likely going to go wrong.

1:30:15Okay? The truth is, someone like me who loses his child all of a sudden to preventable medical error at a moment of his prime realizes that this actually is the case of life all the time. But we're always in a perfect store. Right? That we are always, as I said earlier, I have no guarantee whatsoever that I will ever see you again, Peter. Okay? I might leave the world within two minutes from now. And by the way, it happens all the time. It happens all the time that So the world surprises us a tidal wave or an erupted volcano or someone that you loved so much that you hugged and played tennis with, you know, leaves our world and hour later or whatever.

1:31:08Okay. And that's the reality of the video game. The reality of the video game is there is only now any real video gamer. I'm a very serious video gamer by the way for those of you listening the one that killed you yesterday is me Okay Simplast that right but but I but but but every every real video game right by the I'm not addicted at all I play 45 minutes a day four times a week, but I'm Olympic champion level, okay, and I will tell you real gamers Real gamers understand that the game has no state a Minute later Okay, when a minute later is rendered on the screen, I will deal with it. And because I'm a very good gamer, I know I'll be able to deal with any challenge that comes a minute later, right?

1:32:00My challenge is this minute, and my joy is this minute. And now, right here, right now, if life is in a perfect storm, I tell people, live, live, because you know what? But you have certainty that today is not a perfect storm yet. You have certainty that your kids are wonderful in their ear, in your arms today. You have certainty that you're going to have dinner tonight. You have certainty that your battery on your phone is going to last another five minutes to hopefully finish our conversation. When you have those certainties, don't think about what's going to happen when the battery runs out.

1:32:40Think about this minute. How can I savor this minute fully? And I speak sometimes about, again, you don't have to be spiritual to think of those things, but I studied a ton of spiritual techniques, a ton of spiritual teachings, almost everything I could get my hands on. From the Kabbalah to Islam to Sufism to Hinduism to Buddhism, anything I could find my hands on. And I put my hands on and I'll tell you openly, every one of them is beautifully full of gold nuggets and beautifully full of crap. And it's quite interesting how some people will say, oh, here is a piece of crap. I'm going to drop the whole book.

1:33:19While in reality, I go like here is a piece of gold. I'm not going to look for another one. The most beautiful of all of them is what soothies. Sophism is a sect of Islam originally, but it's now part of a lot of spiritual beliefs, where basically they say that the way to live fully is to die before you die. And to die before you die is a very, very interesting definition. It basically assumes that living is a process of associating with the physically. Associating with your car, with your ego, with your t -shirt, with your, you know, whatever. And that death is the moment of disconnection of everything with everything physically.

1:34:04And to die before you die is to be alive fully engaged in the game but not give a shit about losing any of it. And that's a very, again, a video gamer's mentality is to say, I am going to do this bit. I'm going to do it the best that I can. I'm playing football out. I'm fully out there, right? And I'm going to enjoy it fully, but I'm not attached to the result because the result is bigger than me. And what I think people need to do in the world we live in today is to learn to live. Because when we spoke last time in the AI episode, I told you openly it is game over for our way of life. The way we live today, five years from now, is going to be nonexistent.

1:34:53How will it change better or worse? That's not the topic, but it's not going to be like it is right now. So when we are here right now and you love this way of life, enjoy the hell out of it. Live it fully, connect to it fully, play the game and enjoy the fun, and prepare yourself by detaching from things that might be taken away from you. Prepare for yourself to get other things that might be given to you. And that kind of flow in life, I know sounds very philosophical. In a world where we're talking economics and politics and so on. But I can tell you that real gamers, when they die, the reason why we gamers play really well is because we have multiple lives in the game.

1:35:38So I'm not saying this from a physical, from a spiritual point of view. But I'm saying when you don't care if you're killed in the game, you play full out. Right. Okay. And I think that's the idea. The idea is yes, the future might hold some challenges learn to live. And if you learn to live, if you learn to flow, if you learn to savor those beautiful moments we have right now. Okay. Then what happens tomorrow doesn't really matter. When tomorrow comes, if your prepares through that, the three points I said earlier, if you prepare, hopefully you'll over you'll be able to overcome that too. You know, that's interesting because none of those things are what we teach in school today to bring it back to directional question offs.

1:36:20I'm gonna share with you my list that I wrote down and then maybe chat GPT's list. Because I think about this, I think about, you know, do what we need to reinvent it. Because I'm clear that the momentum that our school systems have is not going to change until it's forced to change. So what I put on my list is helping our kids first off find their purpose and passion. And there's a distinction between purpose and passion, but it is something that, you know, I found my purpose and passion early on from Apollo and Star Trek, right? It was opening up space. It lit my heart on fire. Everything I've ever done is a result of that passion, that dream, you know, to learn on my own.

1:37:10But it can be anything you can occur out of anything these days. But what is it that lights you on fire and makes you happy and gives you joy? The second thing I put down was the combination of debate, leadership, and asking great questions. You know, when I drop my kids off at school every day, I say ask great questions. Right? You know, today it's about asking, you know, prompting chat, But it's the questions we ask. You know, I give this advice to CEOs at the same time ask great questions. And it's the questions that you've never allowed yourself to ask as a as a child or as a leader. But leadership and I want to come back to leadership a little bit.

1:37:54Helping our kids understand what leadership is and how to lead, how to have a vision, how to connect with individuals. curiosity. I think that's innate in children, in the youngest of children, but we lose it over time. That goes back to asking great questions. Maintaining it, creating a curiosity practice, solution oriented thinking, where the notion is, if there's a problem, rather than focusing on the problem really do a judo mind trick or a Jedi mind trick to focus on the solution because there are solutions. Critical thinking, first principle thinking, exponential thinking, and then philosophy, which is going to be more valuable than ever before.

1:38:48I believe that. Yeah. When you hear Chad GPD's philosophy, in the sense of dealing with the uncertain, and really, you know, being able to manage knowledge in the ambiguity of not really knowing. I asked Chad G .P .T. and I said, okay, what are the skills that our kids need to be taught in high school to prepare them for a world of advanced AI? It said adaptability,

1:39:18continuous learning, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, ethical awareness, and resilience. I like the adaptability bit very much actually. Well, it's going to say, you know, adapt to AI. Listen to your master. Listen to your master. But this is a conversation I'm going to be having for a while, which is what are the skills that are going to prepare our kids? Because they're going to spend a huge amount of time and then be thrust into living on their own. And it's this decade that things are changing dramatically. Yeah, the next three years. Yeah. Yeah. You keep on saying next three years versus decade, and you're right, it is the speed of change is, there are tiny little triggers that are beyond repair.

1:40:11Okay. So if, if Ahmad must talk in your, you know, he boldly says no developers in five years. Okay. So that's if you're the most conservative human on the planet that assumes a 20 % job loss in the development scale and landscape Every year imagine if 20 % of all the developers you know in California have lost their job every year for now That's a very significant redesign of the fabric of society Okay, and and I think the reality is it's around the corner Everybody at this is Peter, a quick break from the episode. I'm a firm believer that science and technology and how entrepreneurs can change the world is the only real news out there worth consuming.

1:40:57I don't watch the Crisis News Network, I call CNN or Fox, and hear every devastating piece of news on the planet. I spend my time training my neural net the way I see the world by looking at the incredible breakthroughs in science and technology. How entrepreneurs are solving the world's grand challenges? What the breakthroughs are in longevity? How exponential technologies are transforming our world? So twice a week I put out a blog. One blog is looking at the future of longevity, age reversal, biotech, increasing your health span. The other blog looks at exponential technologies, AI. 3D printing, synthetic biology, AR, VR, blockchain.

1:41:39and these technologies are transforming what you as an entrepreneur can do. If this is the kind of you use you want to learn about and shape your neural nets with, go to demandus .com, backslashblog, and learn more. Now back to the episode. Well, I want to go to the next subject, which is one that I'm curious yourself view on this, which is leadership to guide us over the next three. I'll keep on extending the decade in the next three to ten years, which is the challenging part, right? We're not looking 20 or 30 years out, but it is what's going on in the next three years and how do we guide ourselves?

1:42:19What's the leadership requirement? I mean, you've stood up as a leader and I commend you for it. But one of the questions I went out there and asked through my Twitter account was, who is a leader out there that has humanity's best interests in mind? who do we turn to for guidance at this time? And it's very challenging. There are very few individuals who are standing up and are the individuals who can really guide us through this period. And you thoughts on that? It's a fascinating question because I say that with a ton of respect, we miss the notion of an amazing leader. I think you and I have had very few in our lifetime that we aspire to, right?

1:43:05I mean, in tech and in at work, I work to the amazing leaders, by the way. When it comes to politics, when it comes to policy, when it comes to education, when it comes to things that really form, again, the fabric of society, I don't think I've ever worked, or I've ever, I say that with respect so that nobody gets upset from the people I worked with. But politics itself is a landscape that's actually not in terms of the use of good leadership. You know, whether you're a democracy, so a big chunk of your attention is on getting votes or whether you're a dictatorship, so you don't give a damn. Either system is really not for the people at all.

1:43:49I think what's going to happen is that there will be emergent leaders, thought leaders, ethics leaders that you and I don't know today. Okay, these are people that would rise and they will say look, there is a regime change if you want. Again, I said that last time. And the regime change is that the current leadership sadly is not qualified to understand the pace. Okay. It is very sad. And as I hear them speaking, you know, past presidents, current presidents, world leaders speaking about AI, they lack an understanding of the implications. They do. I mean, Peter, in the last, in the last, say, six weeks, I've been on your podcast and other podcasts and my conversations been heard, let's say, 15 million times.

1:44:45Okay? Like, at thousands and thousands of messages from people saying, I had no idea this existed. I had, you know, I heard of ChatGPT and played with it a little bit, but I don't know. This is not the main topic even in the news. And when news networks started to take AI as an angle, all they did is really promote a Doomsday scenario. This is an existential risk. Nobody is having the proper conversation of what is AI, where is AI today, and what does the future of AI look like if we can take a few extrapolations from here. Nobody's having that. Nobody's talking about about a deep understanding of what the control problem really is, because you and I, who coded this stuff, know for a fact that there is very little control code in those machines.

1:45:40It's amazing how little control code there is. It is none. I don't want to exaggerate, but there is very little control code. I mean, you have, it is in the past, we've had programs that or a million lines of code. And in, you know, GPT, three, four chat GPT is running on like three or four thousand lines of code. A thousand lines of code. And none of the four thousand are, I mean, I don't remember if it was on you or who that spoke about that, but it is even when we use reinforcement learning to teach chat GPT, it's the California walk culture that's teaching it, okay? It's not taking into consideration any, you know, conversations around global problems.

1:46:23It's not taking into consideration any Harmonization any diversity beyond the, you know, the topics discussed in California. There is nothing Nothing. So not even forget control code control behaviors Data sets that actually represent humanity is none And I think the challenge we have is that policy and politics will not catch up. No, it's the most linear of structures. Exactly. So it's not that they are not aware today. They are not going to catch up. That's it. Because you have two charts. One of them is exponentially growing in its space. Double exponential almost. And the other is linear. So they'll try to catch up and understand by hopefully March 2024 they'll understand what happened in January 2023 when Judge GPT came out and Bard responded and meta responded and this and a Microsoft and they'll try to understand all of that and they're not even going to grasp what's happening in China and what's happening in Russia and what's happening on quantum computing and nobody and then by the time they understand January 2023, you know, we're already made the 2024 and And they won't understand that until 2020.

1:47:39You know, the challenges we don't have structural wisdom councils, we don't have individuals, we can turn to to see how do they, how do these trusted leaders think about this? You know, it's not global or leaders today. It's not religious leaders. It is a challenge and we need that leadership. We need it desperately. We need someone to speak to at least the purest form of how people should be thinking about this. What are the true concerns? I think we will end up with emergent themes. Paul Cleans. What does that look like for you? People who pop up. I mean, you're an emergent leader here, if I could, right?

1:48:21And you've invested yourself. And sometimes I hear you sort of saying, well, I'm not sure I want to do this, but you are. And I'm grateful for that. I was hoping you never say that. So the thing in my mind is that there is a balance of awareness and capability. Okay. We need, with all due respect, in on Musk speaks a ton about AI and his story would open AI and what happened here. I don't understand how he's thinking because if you're stuck in capitalism, you would talk about it and do nothing about it. If you're genuinely interested in this, you should put several billion dollars behind AI safety immediately.

1:49:20If you're a billionaire anywhere in the world and you want to live, you know, 10, 15 years more in the same life that you're living, you should put half of what you have on AI safety. And I'm shocked no one is stepped up to that. It's really... Nobody is. This is driving me crazy, right? And I talk to those people and I explain the situation to them and I say, your way of life is about to end and it can end abruptly for some of us. I mean, especially if you have too much at risk, can end abruptly because if you're the king of textiles in some country of some sort, and we invent some intelligent way to build textiles, your business is gone.

1:50:07Anyone who is unable to participate in this revolution in a way that is ethical. There is a very high likelihood that you will be disrupted very heavily. If you're a bank, I can guarantee you, as we speak, there are AI being developed to hack banks. You might as well invest $300 million instead of trying to gain on top, you know, against your other competitive bank, you might as well spend them on getting all together and working on safety code on AI, so that AI does not add banks. Okay, and nobody's doing that. So there is a separation between capability and intention. Okay, I'm a nobody, I'm a thinker.

1:51:00I have a few views of the world that I genuinely in my heart believe, but I can't prove for a fact. And I'm trying to tell the world to wake up. The resources of our world are centralized in other places. And those resources need to shift. Whether those are resources of power in the hands of politicians, which in my personal view should hire someone that they obey blindly on AI regulation and code and not even debate it. Like we can afford to make mistakes as we're moving in the head in the direction of regulation and safety, but we cannot afford to not do anything. Okay, we cannot afford to move at government speed.

1:51:44You know, if you're like Elon Musk and there are many, I know many. What your money, what your mouth is, work on AI safety. Okay, work on ethics, work on waking consumers up. This is my biggest solution to the situation. AI does not learn from the developer. It does not learn from government. It does not learn from the business owner. It learns from you and I interacted to interacting with it. Yeah, poor money into teaching us how to interact with it. Poor money into the end of truth. Someone needs to poor money in the idea of if this is deep fake, I need to be informed. But I think that last point and we'll close it on this is the notion that AIs learn from us.

1:52:32They are our progeny. We are their parents and we are shaping them. And you make that beautifully in your book, Scary Smart, where you open up with the fact that we, you know, the large language models out there are built on us. They're built on our interactions. Everything we have put out into the digital universe, how we interact with each other, how we interact with our kids, with our, with our AIs themselves. And we're teaching them through example, large language models are not a, a, a, a, self, um, an intelligence born out of its own origin. It's born on our backs. And I think one of the things that you said in the past that I found fascinating is what percentage of the world do we need to wake up to a good model.

1:53:26And that blew me away, 1%. 1%. So I always use this example. I don't know if we spoke about this last time. But if people have a minute, please listen to the words of Edith Ager. Edith Ager. He did a beautiful podcast with her. Yeah, I had an incredible life altering experience with this 93 -year -old woman that was drafted to Auschwitz when she was 16. So she lives through the Holocaust and she tells you the story of the atrocities happening in that world from her beautiful angelic heart. Where if you heard the stories from the generals or from Hitler or whatever you would think that humanity is come, if you hear it from Edith, you realize this is divine, you are divine.

1:54:15And I always will say that species that able, that's able to love their children like you love your kids' Peter is divine. It's in divine in every possible way. Right? The problem is we don't show that divinity. Our mainstream media is only showing the negative, our social media is only showing fake. Okay? And so all I ask is that you hear Edith and then tell me if there are more people in the world that are closer to Edith or more people in the world that are closer to Hitler. Because the reality, the mathematics of it is that when one person goes and with a gun to a school to shoot, four billion people that hear the news around the world is a proof of it, one to four billion, we are okay, we're just not showing us.

1:55:07Okay, so what I need to do is to tell the machines somehow by instilling doubt in their minds That not everyone is rude not everyone is violent not everyone that as a matter of fact if they Just do their research like I believe like I just told you most of humanity approve disapproves of cake Like I just told you most of humanity is capable of love like I just told you most of humanity appreciates beauty. Most of humanity has compassion. That's the truth of humanity. All we need is to instill the doubt in the minds of the machines. Okay, so just like I instilled the doubt in your mind now and you're thinking about it and you're saying, yeah, his right, we're not that crap after all.

1:55:53Yeah, we're lost most of us. Okay, we're traumatized most of us, but deep, deep inside humans are okay. And so in reality, if we instill that out in the minds of the machines and they're smarter than me, they're going to find that out too. And when they find that out, hopefully they'll do to us what the Indian friends that we had in Silicon Valley did to their parents. They came to Silicon Valley, they built amazing technology, they made a hundred million dollars and then whoops, they went back to India and you call him in the morning and say, hey, where are you? and he goes like, I'm back in India.

1:56:30Why are you back in India? Or because I have to take care of my parents. Are you mad? You're so successful here, but he says, I don't care about success. The right thing to do is to take care of my parents. That's what we want AI to be. We want AI. We are their parents. We want AI to say, yeah, that is annoying like hell. I'll take care of him because he's nice. Yes. Well, it's a beautiful place to close out, buddy. Thank you for the work. beautiful place to start Peter. I think people need to put this phone down that they're listening to us on and Think about what they're going to do to change things.

1:57:07I think that's what we need Yeah, people to be conscious people to take action focus on your own happiness and Actually a happier population individuals are gonna be better parents for an AI on the caring caring about the things and bringing it back this this dance between I mean, your book's scary smart and your book's software happy, both of which are incredible. If someone wants to play in the 10 billion happy game, where should they go? So I'm very accessible, interestingly on social media. So if people text me on Instagram mainly and LinkedIn a little bit, I'll always respond. If people can go to mogaudat .com, all of my work, all of my books, all of my podcasts, the information, one billion happy and other things are there.

1:57:58By, I would tend to believe that if people want to engage, follow the two objectives. Remember that happiness is your birthright, that if you do the work you're going to get there, that's number one objective. Remember that you need to take action based on that. And the action is investing your own happiness. Doesn't have to be my work. There is a ton of work out there. Whatever suits you to prioritize your own happiness in difficult times. And then investing the happiness of others. tell your best friend and your sister, teach your kids to whatever, two people, tell two people who tell two people, and we'll be at a billion happy.

1:58:30I think the times we're going through are times to remember that we should live. There are times to remember that what matters most is human connection, compassion, is to remember each other because for the first time, I would say since nuclear weapons, humanity is faced with challenges that require us to prioritize humanity over our individual objectives and targets, our nations, objectives and targets. If we can just find that within our heart, I think the future will be a utopia. In many, many ways, I would create that amazing world for us where all of those problems are solved. If we miss that bit out, then yeah, I think it's going to be challenging on clove.

1:59:16Mo Gaudat, the author of Scary Smart and Saul for Happy. And I want to say thank you for your work again Mo. It's an honor and a pleasure to be working with you and to support your mission. I think one of the most critical to incredible moonshots. And I wish you a day filled with happiness and enjoy. Thank you so much for having me Peter. So it was a joy and an honor and I'm really grateful for your support. Thank you. Thank you.