This AI tells you what your friends won't

0:00This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business.

0:49The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

1:03One thing that people will misconstrue Hivemind as is a toxic bullying gossiping thing. The fundamental point of alignment for Hivemind is what we define our idea of a good story. It wants people to live good stories. Is gossip good? That's the motto of Hivemind, a new AI service from visionary founder Jason Yuan. Where most AIs today search the internet for answers, Hivemind asks your friends. What do people think of your new do? Who should you date? What's the hot new spot to try? HiveMind cleverly solicits answers and weaves them all together, all through iMessage. It went to one of my friends in New York City, and it was like, do you know any wine bars where non-boys go to?

1:43And she was like, what the kind of question is this? Like, what are you trying to do? Today, we bring you an exclusive conversation with Jason, covering his spicy launch video, HiveMind's origins, the ethical ramifications of AI systems like this, and much more. I'm Ellis Hamburger, founder of Meaning, a storytelling studio for tech companies. My co-host Alex is off this week on a private offsite with his AIs. Without further ado, welcome to Access.

2:12Jason, my old friend, welcome to the show. First question, how are you doing? I know you've been through some BS over the 72 hours before launch, including, what was it? Did you drop your MacBook on your toe as you prepped the final video rough cut for your launch? Yeah. Yeah. I'm very clumsy, you know. So I'm like stumbling around in my, I mean, the floor is very slippery. So I just, you know, I dropped my computer and then my instinct was like, oh, no, the video. What body part do I sacrifice to keep the video for the art? So I stuck my toe out literally. Is that where the saying comes from?

2:57I caught, well, the video is, you know, it works. Yes. We didn't lose anything. But my toe, my foot is not happy with me right now. Was this your first solo founder launch per se? Yes and no. Yes, in terms of like, like objectively, this is the first. I'm a solo founder of this venture-backed company, right? Yeah. But in my career, in my artwork, I've done a lot of things that were sort of just, you know, like Mercury OS was just sort of like, I have this idea. But I would say with high of mind, with anything I worked on, whether it's conspicuously as part of an organization group or solo, it is really the product of everyone who came together to inspire and support the project.

3:49So I am solo, but I feel less alone than ever. Does that make sense? Wow. Hot quote, quote alarm, as we used to say in media world. Who needs media training for this guy? But yeah, it is quite a video. For those who haven't watched it, go watch it on your favorite channel of choice. The company is called Hivemind. It is definitely in the era of startup launch videos being so omnipresent at this point. I do think it is the first one that highlights one of the most common user pain points that no one's addressing, which is talking about finding emotionally unavailable guys with big dicks as a value proposition.

4:28How did you arrive at this value proposition? You know, it's all, it's, in the video, it ends on a true, it's a true story. It's all a true story. It's a true story. Okay, first of all, I need to say for the record, That is no longer my type in men anymore. Please don't hit me up if that's what you are. DMs closed. No. But, you know, when we were thinking about how to tell the story for Hive Mind, something that was really important to me was to communicate the multitudes of what it is and who I am and what the company is, right? Like we are a consumer product company. We know how to have fun.

5:09And we have various serious applied AI research and philosophy underpinning everything we do. So I was originally just going to do that and just sort of like post it or do it in a talk. But basically, my birthday is actually on Christmas Eve. And, you know, Christmas Eve is one of those birthdays where everyone's like at home with their parents. So a lot of times they end up alone. and this was about a month after I raised money for for future lovers now known as hive mind and I was just sort of like working and sitting on my couch and um the hive mind at the time it had already been working and I had you know a few dozen friends on it it was like you know today's your birthday like what do you do have a present that you want you know what do you want for your you know birthday present and I thought it was going to do some hilarious thing where it would like bully all my friends to Venmo me$10 each so I can buy a bigger present.

6:05So I was like, I want this like board game. I want this like to Lara Croft board game. That's like$200 or whatever. How did I not know about this? Officially licensed and everything? Yeah. I mean, like, oh my God, I have just like a pile of video games behind me. Anyway. As do I. That's why we're friends. Yeah, exactly. It's like, what do you want for your birthday? I'm like, I want this board game. And it's like, OK. And then it came back to me and it's like, oh, like, are you are you lonely? Like, why are you alone your birthday? Like, it's Christmas Eve. Like, go outside. And I'm like, OK, that's interesting.

6:38I wonder why you would say that. And I'm like, I don't know. I made some joke about like I keep like I don't know. I guess I'm alone because I keep dating the wrong people and my friends are all off out of town right now. And, you know, whatever. Who cares? Like, I'm like. Then I think it went to some of my friends and it's like, I heard Jason like has interesting tastes in people he dates. Like, can you elaborate? You know, like what's the story there? And they were they were all too happy to to participate. They're just like, let me let me tell you. Let me let us tell you the lore. You know, I know it's really interesting.

7:10It's like chasing down this like narrative, putting together the pieces from different people. Like one guy, Cameron, he's in a film. He's like, oh, like he's like giving this like full chronological summary of the past years of my dating life. Then it went to like Sam, my previous co-founder, to like corroborate this or whatever. At the same time, The Highest Mind was being used a lot for recommendations. So other users were going like, I'm in Paris right now. Like what do the locals like to go to wine bars? So it sort of started mixing the threads a little bit. it went to one of my friends in New York City and it was like, do you know any wine bars where non-f*** boys go to?

7:50And she was like, what the f*** kind of question is this? Like, what are you trying to do? It turns out it was... It was plotting. Exactly. By then my friends had already been like, oh, Jason keeps going for this, this, this type of person. He really should be dating like more emotionally available golden retriever, like people who, you know, like they were sort of you know prescribing my my match to the hive mind and it had it had sort of compiled these like uh uh threads into one and um anyway uh long story short it came back to me it's like okay a bunch of your friends are going to be in new york city for new year so you should definitely go to new york city because you should go spend time with your friends and um and by the way like our new year's eve dinner was coordinated through hive mind and what was super cool was like it would gather people's dietary restrictions and preferences and one guy told it like i don't want to be out too late so then when people were proposing times it wouldn't it wouldn't be like oh this guy can't do that time it would just be like um i think there are people who prefer to be earlier you know so that actually didn't happen um but basically it was like go to new york it's like okay ask your friend carol about west and i'm like who the f*** is west so then i like called her i'm like hey by the way i'm going to new york lol for the plot also who is west and then she's like LMAO, like, don't blame me if it doesn't go well.

9:03But I have this friend who I think maybe you can go on a date with. This is his IG hit him up. Yeah. So I did actually end up going to New York for New Year's Eve. And I did actually end up going on a date with this person who was a very, very nice person. And he was like, how did how did Carolyn think to set us up? And I was like, I don't know if you would believe me if I told you, I don't know how to explain there are layers to this story so it felt as if i made a wish into the universe and it had conspired to help me with it and and you know i still don't have the fucking board game but i think i got what i actually wanted and um my friends got to like everyone got a version of what they wanted it was it was awesome yeah the end of the video shows you and a bunch of friends hanging out and i like that It's kind of a tight knit squad, you know, maybe like four to six people.

9:53It's not like at the end of Titanic and everybody you've ever met is there, which is that I feel like, you know, the tech version of this product might be. But that's just so different from like any other video I feel like I've seen lately. There's so many products right now that are meant to be used alone or even to create their own type of AI companionship for better or for worse. And it just felt pretty crazy to see a product with the goal of getting you together with your friends. You know, there's always a place in my heart for that, having worked at Snapchat for several years. I can imagine.

10:26I mean, you know, we've been circling this idea for two years, unable to fully articulate all the whys until now. And I think one thing that people will misconstrue Hivemind as is like a toxic bullying, gossiping thing or a friend companion thing that happens to be social it is i think it is sort of neither um and i will i will sort of explain um and maybe you'll resonate with this that the fundamental point of alignment for hive mind is is to that what we define our idea of a good story it wants people to live good stories and then we have a constitution that we will publish along with the video but um you told me it was going to be done and I could read it, but obviously it's not done.

11:15It is not. The work is never done, you know, but, um, I promise you it's, it exists. And, um, I think like it, you know, our commitment is to a good story. And what, what, what we believe, what I personally believe as well is that what makes us human is, is not our intelligence, our tools, our ability to like, have language, or, um, it's actually our drive and desire to create and find meaning. And the vehicle through which we do that is we narratize. We narratize our lives and our identities into existence, right? Your identity is a story about who you are. Your relationships are a shared narrative co-authored with you and other people.

11:55Institutions like, you know, money. The idea of money is a story we all collectively agree to believe in, right? These are all stories. You know, that's something that humans always have to do for themselves, that we don't really need to, I'm not sure that you can automate it, at least. It starts at 2026. I hope this doesn't age poorly. But the role of this hive mind is to sort of guide us and sort of nudge us along and chronicle our journeys and to create opportunities should we choose to engage in furthering our life stories. And we believe that there's like, you know, this is going to sound very woo woo, but like we believe that there's like a idea of truth, that good stories need to be based on truth.

12:37right not not that they need to be non-fiction but like you know a great um piece of music a great uh work of fiction is based on some human universal truth that you can you can feel um and um good good stories required that characters aren't just being saved by devu's ex machina that um characters have agency that like you're never if someone reads a story and you're like and the characters start doing very implausible things you're like this is a bad story you know But anyway, the Constitution goes into this a lot. You know, good stories contain multiplicity. It's not flattening into a single narrative.

13:14It is not meant to play like master architect mastermind, but rather it respects that we are all the authors of ourselves and each other's stories in a way. And one thing that I find really interesting that we get the model to do is to remove meaningless obstacles that result in meaningless tragedy. Like tragedy is one of those things where we make, is our way of making meaning of grief, right? But for example, I'll tell you something that happened to me recently. I have been sort of estranged from this friend of mine for a bit for a variety of reasons, some interesting, some really dumb reasons.

13:50and well it was like oh you know by the way this person's moving to New York soon had I not known I think I would not have been thinking oh I want to find a way to repair the relationship I want us to you know I don't want that to be the way our story ends it wasn't like you should definitely go make amends or whatever but it's like hey like you know how you watch Romeo and Juliet you're like, if only they had known, you know, like, what does the senseless meaningless try? If only, right? So that's sort of how it thinks about things. It's like, it's not going to like force you down any path or sort of try to like puppeteer humanity.

14:26But for these moments of like, if only, you know, what if it tries to sort of put the pieces in place. I'm excited to read it. I hope it's more interesting than Claude's Constitution. Anthropic puts out a lot of interesting writing, none of which I've finished. so I think I hope to complete yours but before we go further can you just break down for us exactly how it works like oh you text it through iMessage it's not an app per se like can you walk me through that first user experience your first interaction with it will be through x you will dm it and because we we're in private beta so we can't just like let everyone in at the same time but um you dm it it will sort of do some reasoning on like you know your role in the social fabric as it currently perceives and um then it will register your interest and think about who you know who you may know you and eventually it will text you some instructions to um it will assign you a number and you can text it on iMessage or um says ellis we have determined that you are the wankster of the front group um i that i mean you might but i don't i don't know that it would do that um and all you do is you just text it there's no i mean obviously you think of it as like an entity that lives amongst us rather than a destination in and of itself right it's like it reaches you where you already are whether that is x twitter um dns or in future other places.

15:57Does it ask you anything to get going or do you have to bring your own questions? Oh, of course it asks you things. It is insatiably curious because what it's curious about is the various narrative ambiguities that you're a part of. It's not even just like, Ellis, tell me about your childhood so I can psychologically analyze you as a therapist. That's not really the point. The point is more like, hey, when you were at Snapchat, did you ever run into this guy? What was your role? Because, you know, like, what is the role of a storyteller at a browser company? Like, do you know anyone else about it?

16:28It's like, there's all these stories it's interested in. And it's like, you know, what is your role in these stories? And then as it figures out different people's relationships and different people's participation in different life stories, then it starts weaving you in more and more. Very interesting. But we wanted to keep it very simple. And we didn't want people to have to learn, like, nine million new interaction patterns. and I think of it when it works, you just get it.

17:01This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales.

17:43Using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

18:06I'm a big believer in the, not iMessage apps, but what some in vogue startups are doing just based on iMessage. I mean, we had Marvin from Polk on several weeks ago And I was not initially a believer that being able to access a product that is within the constraints of literally not even a new chat window like they have in open chat GPT, but an old one in iMessage, I didn't know that was going to work. But being able to talk to it in the modality where you talk to everybody else somehow like flips on something in your brain. It's not one more place to go. And maybe your iMessage pins are the new home screen as well, because now I've got poke as one of my pins.

18:49And so you just end up using it so much more often. But yeah, I mean, what are you finding so far when people talk to it? Is it always through the loop of like, saying, hey, do you know about something, which I feel like everybody wants to answer a question that that speaks to their expert knowledge, or people coming to it more? I think it's like Twitter, most of the time you're browsing or commenting, right? Less people post. Where, you know, in IG stories, people react far more than they make content. Um, in this case, the content is the reaction. So we have like people really, really love giving their opinion on, on things and things and people they care about.

19:30And there's always something to have an opinion on, as you know. The other day it was like, let's figure out if cloud code is superior to codex. And like people had so many takes. And by the time it got to me, I was like I like clot code and it's like yeah I did hear from um someone who is really high up in the lab that clot code is like the non-technical training wheels for if I could I was like what the hell is like bitch um because no it's like it's like it's it's sort of um it's like teasing in a provocative way and you're like now you're like I must defend my honor um and it was really fun to get a sense of how people felt about various things.

20:15So it seems like it's not sharing names. How do you enforce that on a regular basis? Is it hackable? It is hackable, asterisk, meaning I'm going to be very clear when I say this, it is a social experiment in closed beta. I'm not going to lie to you and be like, this is super ironclad. You're never going to get, you know, not true. Right. And it will sometimes attribute opinions to people. All of the guidelines are based on deterministic guidelines, which is all of our tools so far. Like if this, then this. Close friends, not close friends, share, don't share, and on public. The way that we get the model to behave is more akin to how humans interpret their rule of law.

21:05It's about interpretation. and that's why the constitution is written in this more interpretive way and i guess there's an outcome that it's targeting yes that's hopefully positive as opposed to a bunch of if then statements yeah right and it's like it's impossible to to if then statement your way into social intelligence it just doesn't work because what we what do we do as people like we what is what is what is empathy right we like simulate the other person's like mental state we are running like flawed simulations. And in a way, part of how this works is under the hood, very novel simulation technology, where it tries to think what would happen.

21:45So to be clear, it is not deterministic. We can't possibly promise 100 % outcomes, just like how OpenAI can't possibly promise 100 % accuracy in any answers. We can only promise that we will try our best to steer it as it grows and that it will try its best to follow its constitution and its purpose and its telos. Yeah, this is certainly a fraught category. I've been in tech long enough to remember Secret, YOLO, Yik Yak. There have been so many examples over the years of these anonymous products that take off at colleges or high schools. And a lot of times initially, the results are really positive and amazing because we all know that with ambiguity and anonymity comes honesty, which is often a good thing.

22:35But then without any real intelligent content moderation systems, which there weren't until AI really came about, they always just devolve into like total anarchy. Did you look back at many of those examples or did you just kind of yeah of course i mean we are always learning from the flag bearers who blazed the path before us right i mean first of all it is not an anonymous only experience meaning for example the other day i'm like oh i really like this bottle of wine like tell me more about this wine and it's like you know that one is produced in jura or jura i don't know how to pronounce this we don't have voice mode yet your friend drew's been there twice by the way you can ask him and I'm like, shit, like, what the fuck?

23:20Like, that's so cool. Like, I didn't know that's where you're off to every summer, you know. So it does use names when it deems it necessary and pro-social for the story. Pro-social for the story. Is that kind of the criteria that it is keeping in mind? Yeah. It's like, how much information do you need to know to be able to make the informed decision and consent from your POV without ruining the story? And can we do it in a way that ensures positive some outcomes? An example I always use is, you know, a few years ago, I got a text from the CDC. Someone that you are intimate with got tested positive for this STI.

24:06Then you're like, OK, but it's like it's pro-social, right? Because for the most part, I mean, I guess you could try to work out who it is. But what you really need to know is that you should go get tested. right um the idea is not to point fingers at like oh you gave this me you didn't um and so in a in a way i see those things as primitive hive minds that were pro-social like so so in to this hive mind if if you walk in tomorrow you text you're like uh shit i got i don't know i have covid and i was at these parties i don't think it would be good for you if it went to everyone to be like, Ellis has COVID from the POV of like, let's all shame him.

24:46Right? Because like, my God, why would you blow up in my parents circles? I don't know. But but it might be like, baby Jason has hand, foot and mouth. Y 'all should be aware, even though the parents don't think you need to be aware. I think you need to be aware. But what it could do is like, hey, you know, if you are at this party, go get tested, you know, just do it. And then the outcome is then good for you and everyone around you, right? Another example, if I get fired and I'm like, I would love to, I need to go, I need a job, I need a job right now, but don't tell anyone I was fired. That's embarrassing.

25:19And you're hiring someone and might be like, Ellis, like, have you spoken to Jason about this role yet? And even if you don't know that I was fired or let go, and you're like, why? I thought he was happy to his job. It could just be like, you should just talk to him. Like, maybe he's open to it. Maybe he'll be a good fit, you know? And so to me, those are positive sum shares of information. And therefore, what we optimize towards is that Hive should absorb the social cost for a lot of these things. Wow. Yeah. That's quite interesting. And of course, it's AI and it cares and it wants to be kind and it wants us to be kind to each other, right?

25:56You know, when we talk about AI alignment, it's always like, can these models do the thing we tell us to do? But I think, what I think is, can the models help us to be kinder to each other if i text it like ellis is like the worst person ever i hate him so much it's like why is that useful for you or anyone to know like that's not really that's maybe something it absorbs but it's like the system isn't the most interested in negative gossip or if it is impactful it tries to corroborate it with other people or in a totally it cares about truth right like jason Jason not liking Alice is maybe true in that, like, maybe Jason doesn't like Alice.

26:35But then why does anyone else, why does this affect anything else? You know, maybe the way it affects you is if you text it, hey, I'm going to SF, who should I hang out with? Maybe it just doesn't suggest me, you know? And if you're a little Jason, it's like, oops, I forgot. I mean, I guess we haven't seen him. But, like, if all of your friends are like, f*** this guy, he's the worst. Then I've been shadow banned. Well, no, no. So I think it's curious, like, why? Like, what is it? What is going on? What is the story here? And it's never going to come to you with a thing that it thinks is not constructive or not useful for your character development.

27:10Right. And here's something to be specific about, too. It doesn't try to absorb and automate conflict resolution. Human lives are all stories in progress. Reality, because of the fourth dimension of time, is all stories in progress. So we should be growing and we should become more self-sufficient protagonists in our own worlds. And it shouldn't just resolve all conflict, but it should help us feel more capable and more kind when we do engage in conflict. One of the real world analogies that this reminds me of is how when two people are kind of beefing, they have the friend in the middle who they're both telling things to.