How Evolutionary Forces Impact Your Success | Kristian Rönn

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30:37Apply today at theartofcharm.com slash elite now. How should we approach these as we look to the future, looking now in a state of abundance that we live in? Advancements in technology have created so many more opportunities for us, but these selective pressures and these downstream effects of our short-sightedness still present themselves in negative ways. I think we need to not fool ourselves because, we have lived in an enormous era of peace and prosperity. And I think that peace and prosperity is largely because of US hegemony, for good and for bad. The fact that we have had since the fall of the Soviet Union, one global power, there's only been one power game in town, more or less, that has created unprecedented stability.

31:27But then there is also a part of the growth. We have some technologies that we discovered. I mean, we discovered electromagnetism, and that enabled a bunch of new technologies. We discovered transportation and communication and satellites. So that led to a huge economic growth. But now what we're seeing is that, you know, it's somewhat stagnant. It's almost like we have, you know, squeezed every drop out of those technologies where we can't expect sort of, you know, growth and abundance to continue for infinity. So as like growth is slowing up, there is sort of this real concern of how are things shared like equitably between different people in different walks of life, etc, etc, in order to sort of have a safe, prosperous future where we don't see, you know, huge revolutions and so on.

32:25But to sort of answer your question, what is the solution here? I think we need to think hard about what is it that we actually intrinsically value here, right? Because as soon as we have sort of these proxy metrics, like, you know, it might be a profit, or it might be power, or it might be, you know, a bunch of different, you know, metrics, we need to think hard about what is it that we intrinsically value. And at least to me, it sort of boils down to, let's say, I want to get a car I might ask myself, okay, why do I want this fancy car? I mean, maybe it's because I want to feel part of a group.

33:00I want to impress people. Why do I want to impress people? Because being social and having friends is nice. And why is it nice? Because it makes me happy. Why do I want to be happy? Oh, because happy is good in and of itself. It's great in and of itself if I'm happy and other people are happy. And by asking that question, why, why, why, I converge towards what my intrinsic value was. And for me, that intrinsic value is like, I think we should optimize for happiness of sentient beings. Like someone else might converge towards, like, actually, I think nature is beautiful in and of itself, and we need to preserve it at all costs.

33:40But we need to have conversations around, like, what is it that we intrinsically value and try to collectively optimize around that? Because otherwise, you will sort of have a similar situation that you told about with the flyers. Like you had the wrong metric, you know, so people are just dumping the flyers like wherever because they got rid of them. And right now, like so profit maximization is a little bit like the equivalent of that because we're not measuring what we intrinsically value. So is the argument then it's more difficult to measure these things? And that's why we default to the more easy measurements.

34:15Obviously, with financial markets, profit is fairly easy to measure. global happiness is quite a difficult measure with our current technology. So is that one of the reasons that we default to these rudimentary incentives that work against us? Yeah, I think so. I think that's one of the reasons for sure. But then also, some of those more rudimentary metrics seems to be more correlated with power. And power is adapted for in the long run. If you have like a billion dollars, then you can buy much more power for a billion dollars than if you have the currency of the happiness of like 1000 people or something.

34:58So sort of over time, like these Darwinian drives and selection pressures will sort of select for money because it's more orthogonal to power and the survival of nation states or people who sort of wield it. So that's one thing. But I think the measuring problem is the other big thing. I think the measurement problem, however, we can solve through digital technology. And one example that I bring up in my book is sort of the idea of so-called reputational markets, where everyone in the world can participate in these markets. They can vote on what is it that I intrinsically value. And then similar to sort of the sports betting where you bet on, OK, is this team going to win or is this team going to win?

35:44But instead, you bet on, OK, how well is company X, Y and Z or like the strategy of Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris? How well are they going to stack up and instantiate those things that we intrinsically value and sort of vote it on? So that's the entire idea. So I think like through digital technology and some clever mechanism design, we can set up sort of the right systems where we measure the right things and where we actually like put some sort of reputational score on powerful politicians and nation states and enterprises in terms of like their perceived ability to actually instantiate those things that we intrinsically value.

36:30So looking at the measurement problem as one area, but also what you talked about is this human desire for power and that overwhelming any measurement that we might gain for or create incentives for. So how do you see that human desire for power influencing a reputational score, whether it be decentralized or centralized? Nobody really has power. And what I mean by that is that the world is so incredibly interconnected. So I mean, the people in power have power because all of the other people that have power, like, I mean, you have power, I have power, everyone has at least a little bit of power.

37:12They agreed that, you know, it's okay for you to sort of have the ultimate power and ultimate say. So we do not yet have any agents with ultimate power where you don't need anyone else. Like to the contrary, like supply chains and value chains and all goods that are created in the world economies. Highly, highly complex with thousands and ten thousands of individuals and technologies and capital from all of across the world being a part of its creation. So I bring up this example in the book of there is this guy from YouTube. He wanted to create the chicken sandwich from scratch. And it sounds easy.

37:52You just grab a bit of chicken from the fridge and some butter or whatever, and you make the sandwich. But truly making it from scratch means like growing the grain, you know, milling it. And you can't mill it with modern technologies. You have to do it with like sort of stone tool technology because you want to do it completely independent of anyone else. And same thing, you need to grow the chicken. And it ended costing him like$1 ,500 and six months of work to just create a simple chicken sandwich. So that just sort of highlights how highly interconnected everything is in the world economy.

38:29So I think if we could have these reputational markets where that interconnectivity were displayed and suppliers of like a big enterprise, If evil oil company Inc. is doing something evil and then everyone knows about it, then the suppliers could say like, hey, I don't want no longer want to be a part of this. Because maybe they are afraid that if they don't sanction the evil oil company, their suppliers in turn or their employees will not be a part of them. I think you can sort of create this new equilibria where reputation in terms of how well you instantiate these values actually matter. and if you don't do the right thing and you try to overpower everyone else you're gonna get sanctioned because your power is not real it's fictitious actually in reality it is distributed but that's one of the things that sort of worried me with you know artificial intelligence but overall like trends of concentration of of power like you could imagine like a god like ai where it's just so powerful that it's not dependent on anyone else whatsoever and i think that's a little a bit dangerous.

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42:04This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan, real United Airlines customers. We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. Yeah, I think from outside looking in, in all of these situations, the human desire for power is leading the charge in many of these advancements.

42:43So on the one hand, that desire for Power has created these advancements in technology that we talk about to create the $5 chicken sandwich instead of the$1 ,500. It has allowed for an increase in human productivity and output that has allowed for all of those resources to be shared in a more meaningful manner. That doesn't cost you that much to produce these items and goods and be able to consume and participate in the market. At the same time, getting everyone to agree on a reputational market and participate in it with that drive to power being a big part of the reason why we're in this situation with nation states and wars and conflict over resources that might appear abundant to some but scarce to others.

43:26It feels tricky to me to centralize and create a reputational score that we could all agree on and not compete against those incentives. I want to add to that, too. I think it's our drive for power that has created some of these tools. So now that they've been created, now I'm going to ask you to give up some of your power in order for everyone to be able to use it and showcase a little bit of power of their own. Now, if I spent all those resources and time and effort in order to build that, I'm going to tell you no. so we we have a a stalemate right and so of course it's going to be might makes right when it comes down to it oh yeah yeah 100 i'm not disagreeing with anything that you're saying i think like power has been like a force for good as well right i mean building new technologies I mean, to quote Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, it's like greed is good.

44:31And I think there has been some elements of greed being good for sure, like greed for love, greed for wealth, greed for the good things in life. And it has inspired people to build some really, really, really amazing things. So when I talk about power in reputational markets, I'm not talking about it from a centralized point of view, quite the opposite. I think where things can go wrong is if someone, a centralized authority says, oh, this is the new success metric right now. And they didn't think about the success metric carefully enough. And then they're centrally enforcing that on everyone else.

45:10And then it just goes horribly wrong. So what I'm talking about here is distributed power, because like every single supplier, every single employee, like the whole machinery is working because like everyone is contributing to that machinery. So I think like the realization that you actually have a little bit of power and you as a supplier have a little bit of power, like you as employees or whoever has a little bit of power. And that bigger power that you're a part of is existing because of your contribution. And you can actually say no, because, OK, what you're doing here does not correspond to the values that we agreed upon.

45:50So I think that would be sort of an ideal scenario, which is a little bit utopic. But I'm intrigued to think a little bit more about it beyond the book in the future. So it feels to me that in a lot of ways, this is what cryptocurrency is moving towards, right? This ability to decentralize and create a unit of value outside of governments and outside forces that carries weight and reputation across country boundaries, outside of markets, inside of markets that we all agree on in a decentralized way. and you now believe that if we were to create a reputational market on top of that infrastructure, that decentralization, that could create the next level and move beyond the incentive problem.

46:36Heck yeah. Heck yeah. I think, I mean, I think blockchain can be so incredibly powerful. I mean, you can build in sort of some of the, you know, values and the beliefs as, you know, prediction markets on the blockchain. You could create smart contracts around particular outcomes. You could tokenize those outcomes in a decentralized manner. So I think there are some real opportunities here to build a new decentralized system of governance if you build the right mechanism designed. And I just think it's so incredibly cool. If you take blockchain, It's just a tiny freaking piece of code. And we don't even know who it is that deployed that piece of code in the world.

47:22But into that piece of code were incentives for mining, incentives for transactions. And that incentive design meant that, okay, all of a sudden, hundreds of millions of people are using it without anyone forcing them to. and without the marketing department, without the sales department or anything else. So I think that idea is incredibly powerful because like existing power structures, it's against their incentives to give up that power, right? I mean, that's why like a globalized UN that has some sort of policing does not exist. I mean, the easiest way to get rid of the climate problems would be, okay, the UN police is gonna arrest the world leaders that don't achieve their climate targets, like problem solved.

48:12But no world leader in the right mind would give that power to the UN because it's like against their self-interest to give up power to a new centralized authority. And I mean, eventually, I think maybe through evolution, through natural selection, like something like the EU might like grow organically over time because more and more states see the advantages of being a part of the single market. and it might become sort of a global government over time. But we don't have time for that. That is a risky gamble. We need to create the new system of governance that is decentralized and replacing the old systems to some extent, which might sound super naive and it probably is, but I'm excited for it.

48:56I see the challenge and I want to make sure that for our audience that it is clear. So let me summarize what I'm getting. You tell me if I have this correct. We have all these great technologies. Everyone is already using them, and where they can take us is totally unclear. However, if we get together, we'll be able to see some great stuff. However, the problem, as always, is human beings communicating with each other in order of how we are going to use these technologies. Therefore, the only thing that is stopping us, our hurdle, is our cooperation. Do I have that correct? Yeah, yeah, that's more or less correct.

49:38I mean, I think all of the global dilemmas that we're facing, it's just cooperation failures. It's just a version of sort of the prisoner's dilemma or the tragedy of the commons where individual actors are incentivized to defect and engage in arms race dynamics instead of reaching like a Pareto optimal equilibria that you could reach if you just, you know, collaborate and cooperate together. So how then can we get to a more collaborative, cooperative state? Yeah, that's, that is, I think reputational markets is one technology that could bring us in that direction. I think we need a lot more sort of technological bets on, you know, how, I mean, it should totally be like a venture capital category, like coordination technologies that sort of avoid these multipolar traps or darwinian demons so that should be one thing but i think secondly like i think everyone in our everyday life should stop with all of the finger pointing and sort of introspect and look at what system are causing those problems and if there's something that i can do in my life to change that system i mean you might be able to change the dynamic in your family and your team at work and maybe less so in sort of global governments, which is completely fine, because where you are is affecting you the most, right?

50:55Then if you can make that change, it can make it a huge difference. That being said, I think we need to try many things in parallel. Like, I would love to see a situation where the UN can actually impose sanctions on, you know, more crimes or like shitty things happening. But I don't think it will happen anytime soon. But I applaud like all of those people who want to, you know, reform the UN and the Security Council and all of that stuff as well. And coming out of the pandemic, I feel that one of the other forces that arose was the fraying of globalism in terms of international trade lines, our ability to get supplies.

51:32All of that was put under immense tension and pressure and stress, causing a lot of dysregulation in the markets, costs soaring in some areas. And there's now been a movement to more localize a lot of these resources instead of depending on global supply chains. So how do you see rising above that selection pressure that's now arisen from the pandemic? Yeah, it's so complex and multifaceted. Like I see a lot of good things in it. I see a lot of bad things in it. I mean, for instance, like a lot of climate tech investments. And if you take the Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, I mean, that's fundamentally a protectionist policy.

52:14Like we're going to build climate capabilities here in the U.S. to be less reliant on others or energy or solar panels or anything else. And I think that's great because now we're finally investing in climate and preventing the destruction of future species and ecosystems and climate catastrophes. But then there is also the element of, you know, with more and more protectionism and more and more things being localized, we're less dependent on one each other. Like, I think it's to some extent great that the US is dependent on China for a lot of shit that they produce. I mean, they produce a lot of great stuff.

52:56So I meant like shit more metaphorically, but there is a lot of shit as well. And the same thing, like China being dependent on US consumers is great because it's sort of this social contract where it would be prohibitively costly to go to war. But as sort of you just focus on your domestic production and you're less globally interconnected and interdependent, like the incentive structure changes and the cost of going to war is actually quite a bit lower. So I think it is complex and multifaceted. Like I love the Inflation Reduction Act. but i also see some worries around the trend of everything being hyper localized and where do you see us going from here in terms of technology advancement so one of the key areas in the book that you talk about and you touched on a little bit here was ai and obviously we're in a very modern arms race around ai being developed across multiple nation states uh very active in silicon valley in the us but happening all over the world so with that comes great power and great responsibility on the other side of wielding that power.

54:00Now that we're in this development phase, how do you propose we tackle AI? Yeah, that's such a great question. I mean, it is, we are in the middle of an arms race right now. I mean, we have companies that are racing for AI supremacy, and it's so freaking interesting to see, like, I mean, and I've met like most of the leaders of these companies. I can't say that we're, you know, close friends, but I've met them. And I truly, truly believe that their hearts are in the right place and they want to do the right thing. But it's so interesting to see because there were two statements released roughly at the same time.

54:38One statement was around artificial intelligence being an existential risk, similar to global pandemics and nuclear war. And all of the leaders of the big AI labs signed on to that. They're acknowledging that this is potentially an existential risk a few years down the line. And then there was this other statement around pausing development to let governance catch up, and nobody signed that. So it's just, again, the dissonance. We think that this is existential, but we're not willing to pause. Because it's arms race dynamics again. Whoever pauses is going to lose, and they know that they're going to lose.

55:18So the only choice that you have is to raise the head. And right now, all of the big labs are in the US. But at some point, this will become a national security issue, right? I mean, there will probably be at some point in time a Manhattan project for AI where US government steps in and says, like, OK, all of you labs, you need to work together because we need to beat China together. But it's yet again, you know, another arms race. And why all of this matters is because intelligence enables us to build, like, crazy new technologies. like the only reason why we have don't have like stick and stones like bonobos but you know nuclear weapons and nuclear powers is because of these like incredible meat computers like in in in the middle of our ears um but you know we are by no means like the pinnacle of intelligence so we're going to be able to build a lot of cool amazing stuff cure cancer cure aging like i don't know the timeline for these things.

56:19But, you know, we will be able to do those things. But we will also be able to build like, really, really dangerous stuff. Like we will be able to build like engineered pandemics, we might be able to engineer pandemics that are just like affecting people of a certain like race and nationality. And that sort of stuff worries me. So we need to sort of coordinate around those global arts races. But to answer your question, how can this happen? I think it's again, the interconnectedness of things. I mean, it's really interesting. I mean, the US were quick on export controls to China, saying we're not going to export the high-end GPUs that are needed to produce advanced AI technology.

57:01And that is really making AI development a lot slower for China. But China, in turn, has a lot of leverage in the value chain as well. So China and its allies owns like 80 % of all critical minerals that are needed to produce those chips in the first place. So, I mean, there could be a future point in time where China is saying, okay, like we want to double down here. You're not going to get access to our rare earth minerals. So try and build your GPUs now, like good luck. But hopefully that interconnectedness can be a surface for global collaboration where it's like, you guys need us. We need you.

57:42let's create some sort of multinational AGI consortium where we try to define what do we intrinsically value? What do we want this AI to do? What are the national security concerns? And we built this together for the benefit of all mankind. So that's like one way I could sort of see such a showdown come down because of that interconnectedness. But with that interconnectedness, it feels to me that there's development happening outside of commercial use. So much of what we see as users of AI as the commercial form, there's no doubt in my mind that all of these advanced nation states have developed and put a lot of resources towards developing security-related AI use cases and weaponry advanced systems to protect, detour, and ultimately become a weapon that they can unleash in conflict.

58:33Oh, yeah, 100%. And it's a multifaceted arms race. I mean, you might have seen like all of those videos floating around like of uaps and you know might this be aliens might it be this or that but you know uh and in some cases it might just be like a freaking duck and we have no idea what it is but in other cases it's like low cost drones and balloons from china russia other places invading u.s airspace i mean the u.s is doing the same thing against them because there's no countermeasures like you have a swarm of like low cost drones it's it's really easy but i mean the next evolution of that is just put a faraday cage on it there's no way you can jam it make it completely autonomous and super low cost like it's going to be like yeah it's going to be a wild wild ride in the next few few years and that's like another point where we need to come together around like the lethal autonomous uh weapons because they're there.

59:36And I mean, obviously the U.S. is, they rather have people believe that these are aliens than telling the truth that these are like low-cost technologies and our airspace is being invaded all the time and we're not safe. That would be a much larger embarrassment. Looking at the research for this book, putting this together, where do you sit now in terms of optimism, pessimism around the future and the Daronian trap that faces humanity? I mean, it's hard to be an optimist sometimes. It is hard to be an optimist. I've found that, you know, meditation helps in terms of being more of an optimist. Or maybe I'm just like hacking my brain.

1:00:16There is this like psychological theory that actually people who are depressed are just realists. Then everyone who is not depressed is just like delusional to some extent. But I don't think that is true i don't think that is true what brings me a great deal of optimism is how everything is interconnected like what if you really think about it is there one person with power no there's not like power is physically distributed in the world so if we can just set up the governance systems for that distributed power i think we're going to be fine but we don't want to put like too much power in one single actor's hands that that's always a recipe for disaster well thank you for ending us with optimism where can our audience find out more about the book the darwinian trap and the work that you do yeah so you can uh you can pre-order the book it's going to be released on the 24th it's going to be a great you know uh birthday present or christmas gift or a great read for yourself.

1:01:20So please pre-order it. And I think like other related concepts like multipolar traps and moloch, sort of this phenomena has like many other names. I'm far from the first person to sort of, you know, recognize that this is a huge problem. So you can just like Google it and find a bunch of material. Well, thank you for stopping by, Christian. It was a pleasure having you. Thanks. Thanks a lot for having me.

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