E563 AI CEO Alexandr Wang

35:57Like anything that the algorithms know or learn or say or do, all that has to come from the data that goes into it. Okay, so if I ask an AI system a question or ask it to help me with something, help me to design something or to curate an idea, it's going to use the data that it has within it to respond to me and help give me an answer that I can use. And the data it has in it is only based upon the data that is put into it. Exactly. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So then, so yeah, it's kind of, so then we don't, you know, we don't spend enough time talking about where does, you know, how are you going to get this data and how are you going to keep making new data?

36:43So the angle that we took at scale was to kind of turn this into an opportunity for people. So we're kind of like the Uber for AI. So just like how Uber you have riders and drivers, for us we have the AI systems, the algorithms that need data. And then we have a community of people, a network of people who help produce the data that go into the system. They get paid to do that. So they're almost data farming, like creating good data? Creating good data, exactly. Interesting. So, and it's, and it's huge. It's like, so we do this through our platform called Outlier. Okay. And Outlier last year, people, contributors, we call them, contributors on Outlier earned about$500 million total across everybody.

37:38In the US, that's across 9 ,000 different towns. And so it created a lot of jobs. A lot of jobs. Okay. And so what would, okay. So scale was your company. it's an AI system. Yep. Is that right? So we, yeah, I mean, yeah, Scale AI is an AI system. Okay. And then Outlier is a separate company that works with it. Yep. And that is where you are hiring people? We, yeah, we basically - To pull in data. Yeah, we build this platform that anybody, you know, a lot of people, frankly, all around the world, but Americans too, can log on and help build data that goes into the algorithms and get paid to do so.

38:27Wow. Yeah. So how and how does a user do that? Like, what is an example of somebody who's helping build data for an AI database? Yeah. Let's say you're a nurse, like you're a nurse with like tons of tons of experience. So you know a lot about how to take care of people and take care of people who are sick or, you know, have issues and whatnot. And so you could log onto the system and, and this, and our platform, and you could see that the algorithm is, you know, let's say you ask the algorithm, like, Hey, I have a, you know, I have a pain in my, in my stomach. What should I do? And you notice that the algorithm says the wrong thing.

39:03Like the algorithm says, Oh, just, you know, hang out and, and, you know, it'll go, it'll go away. And you know, as a nurse, like that's wrong. Like I, you know, you have to, you have to go to the emergency room because you might have appendicitis or you might have, you know, you might have something really bad. And so you would, as a nurse, you would go in and you'd basically correct all these mistakes that the AI system has. And then that would then feed it back into the algorithm. So that's smarter the next time. So it's kind of this, this continual process of, and there's versions of that for whatever your expertise is or whatever, you know, you know more about than anything, everything, everything.

39:39Exactly. So, and so people get paid for that. Yeah. Yeah. They get paid. And how do you know if their information is valuable or not? Uh, well we, so we don't want spam obviously. So we, we, we have a lot of systems to make sure that people aren't spamming and that like you're saying, it's not, it's not, you know, it's not garbage in that's going into the, into the algorithms. Um, so we have, you know, we have kind of like people check the work of other people to make sure that the AI systems are really good. And we have some like automated systems that check this stuff. But, uh, but for the most part, it's, it's like, it's really broad.

40:12Like we want experts in anything. everything shellfish train tracks whatever yeah gelatin everything childhood death or whatever yeah totally stars galaxies whatever animals big animals yeah yeah damn so wow so it's kind of like your data is almost like an ocean or a body of water and you different places are going to be able to keep their body of water cleaner or dirtier and different infections could get in different spyware, all types of stuff. So, and if you have the really a clean body of water, then you're going to be able to offer a clean data or a certain type of data to, um, people who are using your AI platform.

40:55Does that make sense or not? Yeah, yeah, totally. And our job is like, how do we make sure that this body of water is as clean as possible and we fill it up as much as possible, that it has as much information about everything across the globe. wow so is there almost a race for information right now in a weird way or no is that not it there a little bit yeah i think that there's a well there's a race for like how are different ai systems competing against each other and sorry to interrupt you yeah no no so the there's a there's it's it goes back to the three things i mentioned so there's kind of like three dimensions that that they're all competing against one another one is um chips so who could Who has the most advanced chips?

41:34Who has the biggest buildings of chips? Like who has the most chips that they're utilizing? Data. So the kind of body of water, whose body of water is better, cleaner, you know, healthiest, biggest, et cetera. And then the last is algorithms. So who's, and this is where the scientists really come in. It's like, okay, who's coming up with the cleverest algorithms or who has like a trick on an algorithm that somebody else doesn't have? Like who's doing that to basically make the AI learn better off of the data that it has? Wow. God, I'm in the future right now. That's so, man, it's just, it's so crazy.

42:13And I think AI scares people because the future scares people, right? It's like, that's one of the scariest things sometimes is the future. So I think a lot of times you associate, because a lot of times people mention AI, there's a little bit of fear, it seems like, from people. Yeah. There's fear that it's going to take jobs. there's fear that it's going to take over um our ability to think for ourselves yeah there's just kind of some general uncertainty there like is this and it kind of feels like fear a lot of times but a lot of times fear is just a lack of knowledge right um and not a lack of knowledge because you didn't want to know just because you don't know yeah or that you're dumb but just because you don't know um what are what are positive things that we're going to see with ai right i want to start there.

42:55Yeah. So I think first, like we don't, the AI industry, we don't do the best job explaining this. And I think sometimes we make it seem all sci-fi and genuinely we're part of the problem and making it seem scary. Right. But, you know, one thing, for example, is like, I think AI is actually going to create a ton of jobs. And that story is not told enough. But, you know, these jobs that we're producing or this this sort of um this opportunity that we're providing on our platform outlier like that's only going to grow as ai grows so because you have to have new data you have to have new data and the only place you can get new data is from people will will at a certain point would the system be able to create it can probably matriculate data or matriculate is that with birthing or what is that yeah it just moves through like okay it can probably like quantifier and give you answers, but can AI create new data?

43:53No. So I think, well, it can do a little bit of that. So AI can help itself create its own data and help itself a little bit. But ultimately, most of the progress is going to come from people who are able to help really the model get better and smarter and more capable at all these different areas. Yeah, I didn't see that part of it. I didn't understand that we are the ones who are giving it information. And since we're going to continue to learn, I would assume that we would be able to help continue to help it learn. Yeah. And the world's going to keep changing and we're going to need to be able to keep teaching the algorithms, keep teaching the models about how the world's changing.

44:35So, you know, this is actually a big thing that I think most people don't understand the people who are getting the opportunity now who are earning money from it see it but as ai grows there's actually going to be tons of jobs created along the way and tons of opportunity for people to help improve ai systems or control ai systems or overall um sort of be a part of the the technology not just sort of disenfranchised by it okay so like yeah so what were what are you do you feel like are other ways like if you had to look into the future a little bit, right? So you have the fact that people are going to be able to add more data, right?

45:14And add nuances to data. Yep. Right. And probably humanize data a little bit. Yeah, totally. And then you're also going to have what? I think you're going to have a lot of jobs around, you know, as AI starts doing all these little things throughout the world, who's going to keep watch of those AI and who's going to make sure that those AI aren't doing something that we don't want them to do. So almost like managing the AIs and keeping watch over all the AI systems, that's going to be another thing that we're going to have to do. And then it's - So somebody to kind of guide the river a little bit.

45:55Yeah. At a certain point, guide the stream, stay in there, watch, make sure that answers are correct, make sure the information is honest. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think, for example, whole, you know, we're not going to just have AIs going around and, you know, you know, buying stuff and doing crazy things. And like, you know, we're going to we're going to keep it controlled. Right. Like as a society, I think we're going to keep it controlled as a technology. And I think there's going to be a lot of jobs for people to make sure that the AI doesn't go out and do crazy things that we don't want it to do.

46:31Right. So we want to be so you're going to need managers, you're going to need facilitators. Yeah, exactly. What are things that AI will alleviate? Like what are things that like will it eventually be able to have enough information like our data where it can like cure diseases and stuff like that? Like is that a realistic thing? Yeah, that's super real. Like cancer even. Yeah, cancer. Yeah, heart disease. Like all these diseases. Wow, boy. Yeah. Cancer on its heels. Sorry, Antonio Brown was just here. I think there's still some smoke in the air. No, but seriously, I think that AI, one thing that we've seen, which is this is kind of wild, but AI understands like molecules and biology better than humans do, actually.

47:20because there's this thing in AI where it used to take a PhD biologist five years to do something that the AI can just do in a few minutes. And that's because just the way that molecules and biology and all that works is something that AI happens to be really good at. And that's going to help us ultimately cure diseases, find, you know, pharmaceuticals or other treatments for these diseases and ultimately help humans live longer. Because that's very data driven, right? Like it's very specific. It's very mathematic. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's going to be a huge tool for us to cure disease, for us to help educate people, for us to, you know, there's a lot of really exciting uses for AI.

48:15But I think the kind of, I think the thing that will touch most people in their lives is it's really going to be a, like a tool that will help you, you know, make all of your sort of, make all your dreams kind of become reality, if that makes sense. So, so I think one of the things that AI is going to be really awesome for is like, you know, today, if I, have like a million ideas, right? I have like, you know, thousands and thousands of ideas and I only have so much time. So I can only really do, you know, a few of them at a time. And most of the ideas just go to die, right? Yeah, they do, huh?

48:54Yeah. That's a bummer. It's a huge bummer. Yeah. And I think a lot of people, you know, for whatever reason, they may have some of the best ideas ever, but they just, you know, they're too busy or they have like other shit going on in their lives. They can't make those ideas happen. And it's great with sometimes when people are able to make the leaps and make them happen and like devote themselves to their dreams. But, um, but that doesn't happen enough today. And one of the things that AI is going to help us do, I, I legitimately think so, is it's going to help us, um, turn these ideas into reality much more easily.

49:25So, you know, you can, um, like, you know, you're making a movie, let's say you have another movie idea. You can say, you can ultimately, I think you'll be able to tell an AI, Hey, I have this idea for a movie what could that look like you know maybe draft up a script um also who are the people who can help you know fund this idea like who who those people be can help reach out to them and then like you know who should we cast in it basically help make the whole thing a uh you know instead of this like daunting thing that these big projects they're usually so daunting you really don't know where to get started you kind of need a person to help you get through them instead of that AI will help you get through it and like help do a lot of the sort of less glamorous work to make them a reality.

50:07Wow. So I could say, for example, like, like AI, I would like to shoot, maybe I'm thinking about creating an idea or shooting a film in this area, or it's like this, it's going to take place in this type of place, I can give it the setting, I can give it like a outline of the characters, like what they look like, their ages and some description, Could you help give me possible potential actors or something within a certain price range that I can maybe cast for that? Yeah. Could you help give me like locations around the country that would fit that backdrop? Yeah. Could you list me all the talent agencies that I could reach out to?

50:46And you can kind of just put those things in and then you would have sort of a bit of a guidebook at that point that would make your – what before was something that felt extremely daunting. Yeah. Shit in two minutes, and then you put it in the AI. It gives you the information back in a few minutes and maybe you're – And I think over time, it will also be able to start doing a lot of the legwork for you. So it will be able to reach out to people for you. It will be able to figure out the logistics. It will be able to book things for you. Like it'll be able to basically help do all the legwork to make it make, you know, whatever it is into a reality.

51:22So very much an assistant in a lot of ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. An assistant, co-pilot. You know, the hot word in the AI world is agents. But, you know, it's just it'll be something that will help you. You know, humans are going to be in control. Humans are ultimately going to be telling the AIs what they want it to do. And then, you know, hey, what do we want? What do we want these AIs to do? it's ultimately going to be to like help us execute on and accomplish all these ideas that we have so a genius could be three or four x if somebody's like a genius in something in some realm or space of thought you could three or four x them because totally like multiply their their output from their own brain because they could have something really helping them yeah get done a lot of the like the early work on things and maybe some of the most severe work yeah totally Like I think one thing that I always feel like kind of sucks is that if you have a director you really like, they're only going to make a movie once every couple of years.

52:20So even if you have a director that you think is amazing, they just – it's hard for them to make that many movies because it just takes so much time and effort and there's so many bottlenecks and stuff. So in a future with, you know, more advanced AI systems, they could just churn them out and they can make so many of their ideas into reality. And I think that's true not only in creative areas, but it's kind of true across the board. Like, you know, you can start new businesses more easily. You can, you know, you can make various creative projects that you have happen more easily. You can make like, you can finally plan that event that you and your friends have been talking about for like years and years.

52:59So it can just like really help you – we think about as like giving humans more agency, giving humans more sort of sovereignty and just enabling humans to get way more done. Yeah, that's a great way. I like some of this thought because, yeah, it could be like my fantasy football group and I, we do a draft every year in a different location. And shout out PAE. That's our fantasy league. J-Rod, everybody that's in it. for the past 17 years, we've flown to a city each year and done a draft in person. Right. But I could say, Hey, we have 10 guys. We want to go to a nice place. We want there to be a beach.

53:39This is the age group of our group. You know, these would kind of be the nights and, you know, just to really give me like a, just a nice plan of, Hey, here's 10 possibilities, right? Something like that. And then even more like with a movie, this is what I worry you'd run into. Say if I'd be like okay i have two main characters and this is kind of what i would like to happen could you help me with a first act of a three-act movie how do you know everybody just doesn't get the same movie then like that's what i would start to worry that everything that you have to create is all going to be very similar yeah so then i think this is where it comes into like this is where human creativity is going to matter because it's going to be about then it's about like okay what is the how am I, you know, how am I directing the AI system?

54:24Like, what are my, what are the tricks I have to make the AI give me something that's different and unique? And that's, that's not different at all from, you know, how creative stuff works today. Like even on social media or anywhere, you know, this, like you still add your own spice to it. You need, yeah, you need an angle. You always need to like have something that's going to make it like different and interesting and new. Um, so that's not going to change. Like we're humans are always gonna have to figure out based on where culture's at, based on where, you know, what the dialogue is, what the, what the discourse is, all that kind of stuff.

54:54What is my fresh take? That's where, that's really one of the key things that humans are going to have to keep doing no matter what. Right. And, and some of the, like a lot of films and books, a lot of it is, there's just like a problem. There's a, there's maybe a information you learn, there's a red herring, and then there's a solution. Like that's a lot of stories, right? So if something just gave you the basis and then you go through and make everything your own, um, cause a lot of things we don't, there's only so many templates for things. Um, huh? Yeah. So, so say for example, say you might need to hire people at a company then that would help direct your AI, like somebody who's good at managing AI, and giving it the best prompts or the best way to ask it questions to get the perfect feedback for your company.

55:49So those would be new jobs. Those would be actual new people you would need. Yeah, so tons of new jobs. Well, first, I think just like helping to, kind of what we were talking about before, these jobs around helping to improve the data and contribute to the AI systems, that's just gonna keep growing for a long, long time. And then as AI gets better and it gets used in more areas, then there are going to be a lot of jobs that pop up just exactly as you're saying, which is how do you, what's the best way to use this as a tool? What's the best way to leverage it to, you know, actually make some of these applications or, you know, whatever you want to build a reality?

56:31And then there's going to be folks who need to, once those are built, like, how do you keep improving it? How do you keep making it better? How do you keep it fresh? How do you keep it going? And then how do you also make sure it doesn't do anything bad, right? Like how do you make sure that the AI doesn't accidentally spam a million people or whatever it might be? And you make sure that it sort of is like operating in a good way. Fahim Anwar, I was watching him. Bring up a picture of Fahim. This is one of the funny – this guy, this is the most creative comedian in America. undeniable um he is so funny he had any everybody would say he's he's one of the few comedians that everybody goes in there to watch him perform he had a bit the other night he talks about he got into a waymo right yeah um a car and i see so many waymos now which are cars that are just nobody's in them you know but they're going right so he had this bit he's like he got into a waymo and it started complaining about its life to him he's like i've had a shitty week like the car's just talking to him and he's like what the and he's like now i no matter what i still have to talk to my shitty driver that's what he was saying um if you get a chance to see him though that guy is he's fascinating yeah um but like so what what companies right now should kind of look to hire an ai guy because we've been thinking about it like we had some uh we had cat williams on a last week and we're like hey can you create visuals of suge knight and cat williams riding bicycles down Sunset Boulevard, right?

58:03And this is the one they sent back a little while later. Christopher Foligno is the guy's name, FYI. And this is just, this is right where I say, it was like by the comedy store on Sunset Boulevard. There you go. I mean, this looks like it's out of a movie kind of. Yeah, totally. I mean, and the guy did that in just a little bit of time. What types of people would you get to, I mean, this is. That's you. Yeah. If I was healthier, if I had healthier gums too. But what about this? What kind of like what companies right now, what job spaces? Because we want to get an AI guy, right? But I don't really, my brain is like, well, what do they do?

58:39How do I, how would I keep them busy? You know, I could get them to make some animations and ideas. But what type of people need an AI person right now do you feel like? I kind of think about AI. It's kind of like the internet where, you know, eventually everybody's going to need to figure out how to utilize it, how to best use it for their industry or whatever they do, how to make it then more efficient. It's something that I think everybody is going to need to adopt at some point. So might as well start earlier because eventually, just like how basically every company has to figure out how to use the internet well and how to be smart about the internet and digital stuff, every company is going to have to be smart about AI, how to use AI, how to make, how to have a unique twist on it so that, you know, their stuff stands out relative to other people's.

59:33That's going to be really important. But so we see, I mean, in our work, you know, we work with all these, all these big companies in America and we see it everywhere from, you know, we worked at Time Magazine on some stuff and then we worked with Toyota on some stuff for their cars. And we worked with, you know, large pharmaceutical companies for the biology stuff we were talking about, large hospitals for, you know, helping to treat patients, like, really, it's across the board. And I think that goes for, you know, obviously, like really big businesses, but also for for smaller businesses, you know, there's always interesting ways to utilize it to, to, to provide a better product or a better experience or better content for, you know, whoever you need to do that for.

1:00:16Yeah, because I guess right now, we're like, there's certain moments like, let's animate this moment or see what AI would look like, it adds some visual effects to some of our episodes so that's something we like to do to just be fun and creative i would like to maybe create like some sort of an animated character we already have a great animator and we want to keep that but to have an ai space where it's like you know because they have something they had a little cat the other day or something and he was going to war and i was like damn dude this is it was ai you know totally and they had a baby was getting in a taxi and i was like this shit is elite you know i don't know if it's illegal or not but it seems you know it doesn't seem it you know it's It's definitely a tool for storytellers, right?

1:00:53Like it's – Right. It'll help people with a creative vision or – Look at these war cats. Yeah, that's a story right there. Special Forces Cats. Would YouTube recognize this? Damn, brother. If they show up, dude, wow. This honestly – it looks badass. And it looks like cats have been waiting to do this a long time. Yeah. That's the crazy shit about cats. You look in their eyes. Now their outfits finally match the look in their eyes. That's what it feels like, dude. Wow. That's Dune. That's Fremen Cats. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, so that's going to get alarming, dude. That's going to get hella alarming. That's a movie right there.

1:01:36It is, but it's almost like you could make, like, that's what I want to get. I want to get somebody to help us think, hey, help make these little segments that we can take our creativity. And instead of me thinking, man, I got to write this huge, crazy script for just kind of small things, you know, little moments. Yeah. Can you help me make this happen? I think that's actually the key thing, which is AI, like AI will just be something that we turn to, to help make our dreams happen. Like we help make our ideas and our dreams and our, you know, whatever we want to do happen more easily. Got it.

1:02:06That's like at the core what it'll be. Yeah. Who's the current leader in AI development? Like, is it America? Is it China? Is it Israel? Is it trying to think of another superpower? Russia maybe um or yeah who is it Taiwan I know has a lot of the chips yeah and they manufacture a lot of the chips over there um and does it matter what country leads in AI or does it just matter the company like scale or another AI company so does that make sense that question no totally totally yeah so so today America is in the lead but um but China as a country is is sort of hot on our tails. Like there was all that news about DeepSeek a couple of weeks ago.

1:02:55And DeepSeek, still in most places around the world, is the number one most downloaded app. You know, it's downloaded a ton everywhere around the world, frankly, and is a Chinese AI system, right? And so it's starting to rival a lot of the American AI systems, also because it's free and, you know, it kind of like shocked the world. So right now, if you kind of look at it, But US and China are a little bit neck and neck. Maybe the US and America is like a little bit ahead. And you kind of like look at – if you go back to each of the three pieces that I talked about, so the chips and the computational power, the data and the algorithms.

1:03:36if you were to rack and stack US versus China on each one of those, we're ahead on the computational power because the United States is the leader at developing the chips and most advanced chips are American chips. They probably beat us out on data because China, they've been investing into data for a very long time as a country. And then on algorithms, we're basically neck and neck. so it's a pretty tight race and you know to your question about does it matter or what does this mean I think it's actually going to be one of the most important you know questions or most important races of our time is is it U.S.

1:04:22or Chinese AI that wins because you know AI is more than just being a tool that, you know, we can all use to make our, you know, build whatever we want to or make whatever ideas we want to happen. It's also, you know, it's a cultural staple, right? You know, if you talk to an AI, that AI is kind of a reflection of our culture and our values and all that stuff. So in America, we value free speech and, you know, the AIs are, are built to support that. Whereas in China, there isn't free speech. And so if the Chinese AIs are the ones that take over the world, then all these Chinese ideologies are going to become exported all around the world.

1:05:09And so first, there's a couple of dimensions here that I think matter. So first is just the cultural element, which is like, do we want kind of democracy and free speech to be the cultural AI that wins? Or do we want sort of the more, you know, frankly, totalitarian AIs in China to be the ones that win? And then there's sort of the, there's like the, you know, you start getting to economically. So AI is going to be something that helps all the companies in the United States thrive. And so if the USAI wins, then we're going to, you know, know, the economy will grow faster. We're going to have more and more opportunity, you know, the country will still be better and better and better.

1:05:50And the economy will keep growing. Versus if Chinese AI wins, then Chinese economy is going to grow way faster than the American economy. So there's sort of the cultural piece, the economic piece. And then lastly, there's kind of the warfare piece, right? And, you know, AI, we haven't really talked about it, but has clear potential to be used as a military technology. And we don't want, you know, we don't want another country to have, because they use, they have better AI to have a much stronger military than, than America's. So. Like how would they do that? How would they have a better AI or how would they use it to have a better military?

1:06:31Yeah. How would they use it to have a better military? Like, why is that kind of a concern or potential concern? Yeah. So, so one of the things that's been happening over the past, you know, decade for sure is lots of hacking, cyber hacking going on. So, you know, in America, even recently, we had this huge cyber hack called Salt Typhoon where the Chinese hacked our telecommunications companies, so hacked our, for the phone companies. Damn, they did? They got it. And they got all sorts of crazy data as a result of that. They know I'm a pervert, I'll tell you that. Yeah, look at this. This happened in 2020.

1:07:09Salt Typhoon is widely understood to be operated by China's Ministry State of Security. Its Foreign Intelligence Service and Secret Police Chinese embassy denied all allegations, saying it was unfounded and irresponsible smears and slanders, high-profile cyber espionage. In 2024, U.S. officials announced that hackers affiliated with Salt Typhoon had accessed the computer systems of nine U.S. telecommunications companies later acknowledged to include Verizon, AT &T, T-Mobile, Spectrum, Lumen, Consolidated Communications, and Winstream. The hackers were able to access metadata of users' calls and text messages.

1:07:45Fuck, homie. We're fucked, dude. I am. You seem good. Including date and time stamps, source and destination IP addresses. Ah, shit. Keep going. Keep going. And phone numbers from over a million users, most of which were located in Washington, D.C. Good. Light them up, dude. In some cases, the hackers were able to obtain audio recordings of telephone calls made by high profile individuals. Such individuals reportedly included staff of the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign, as well as phones belong to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. According to Deputy National Security Advisor and Neuberger, a large number of the individuals whose data was directly accessed were government targets of interest.

1:08:26wow yeah that's so do you think this also that that whole thing could be not real and it's just a story that was created uh that seems pretty real because there's there's real they're like um i mean there's like 20 stories where uh where the chinese have hacked american systems like they hacked this was uh this must have been close to 10 years ago now but the chinese hacked the the database in America that stored all of the clearances. So they hacked in, they managed to hack into knowing who are literally all of the Americans who have security clearance. Oh, security clearance. Yeah. I thought you meant what was on sale.

1:09:08I was like, who cares? That's great though. Damn. Oh, damn. So they knew everybody who knew. Oh, who knew information. Who knew secrets. Yeah. So once they knew that, then they know, well, that's a great point of operation to go then. well now let's get find their data they can just hack all of them yeah so so they so already china is hacking the shit out of america that is definitely not an understatement yeah it's exciting kind of i mean it's unfortunate but it's also exciting i like some espionage you know i can't sleep unless somebody's fucking really going through it um but then but then so this is but that's a real ai thing so ai can be used to do that because you can like prompt it to go and do things like that yeah yeah yeah there's there's a bunch of recent because it's all data yeah there's a bunch of recent demonstrations where ai is just like how in in go how ai beat the world's best go players ai starting to beat the world's best cyber hackers and the world's best yeah so it's uh i don't know if you saw mr robot um i didn't but i dm'd with magnus magnus carlson no that's cool pretty cool so but no mr robot is it good uh it's it's just it it shows like like all this hacking stuff and like, you know, cool.

1:10:21It makes it seem really cool. Okay, cool. I'm going to check it out. But yeah, no, hacking, like you're going to have AI that are hacking everything in America. And this is one place where this is like US versus China will be really come to life, which is who has better AI that's better at defending against the hacks from the other guy, as well as hacking the other guy's systems. That's going to be, that'll just start happening. That's basically starting to happen right now. Or it's, you know, cyber warfare has been happening. And then AI cyber warfare is going to start happening. Yeah, basically, as soon as, you know, as AI gets better.

1:10:56Yeah, we had Craig Newmark who created Craigslist on. Yeah. And he was talking about how what if they hacked like everybody's Teslas to all just drive off a cliff one day? Or they hacked everybody's ovens to go up to 400 degrees in the middle of the night while you're sleeping. And then fire started. Like just things like that, that you don't start to think about that once something is connected to the grid or something like that or connected through routers and Wi-Fi that that could be feasible. Yeah, no, there's a lot of things they could do that won't even seem like that big a deal at the time, but could be really, really, could be a big deal.

1:11:34So for example, let's say the Chinese, they just took out all the military communication systems and all the military software systems, took out the satellites, took out all that for like 10 minutes. And in those 10 minutes, they invaded somewhere or they did some crazy thing. like they can just there's there's the the thing about um about this stuff is like everything at you know as the world's become more connected it also enables you know different kinds of warfare so uh so cyber warfare is really big also like the um uh you know uh information warfare is another big one so what does information warfare mean so this is information warfare is all about you know, in a place, what is, what are like the stories?

1:12:23This is kind of gets to like, you know, the like propaganda or, you know, these conspiracy theories, like what are the stories that in a place that we're trying to make happen or not make happen? And we know that China does a bunch of information warfare called IW, it's sometimes called, but they, they have a, they have whole operations. This is actually the craziest part. They have like, they've hired the Chinese military at various points has hired millions and millions of people who are supposed to be on like various like chat groups and WhatsApp groups and WeChat groups and whatnot, and just spread the right kind of stories that'll make it such that they can like, they can make their political aims happen.

1:13:06So for example, in when, when China wanted to start, like kind of like um uh i don't know what the word is like uh like uh when hung when they when china wanted hong kong to become a part of china again which happened just not to not to you know pretty recently the prc right the prc exactly when they want propaganda is that the way you're looking for yeah they would they would yeah exactly they would use a lot of propaganda and that's information warfare to be able to just make it such that that all happened much more easily what's it's unbelievable i'll see stories even about i'll be going through tiktok and see a story come up about something in my life that is not even true insane some of it looks fun but never was a part of my existence and then you'll see hundreds of people have said something about like and they'll and i'll have friends that'll ask me about it i'm like that's just crazy like totally but i so yeah it's amazing to think of how many things we're watching or absorbing that are just, are created just to delude us.

1:14:08Yeah. I don't know if delude is the word, is it? Trick us or make us think something. Just to fucking Halloween us out. Wow. So there was a lot of interesting things. You know what's crazy, man? Some things make life scary, but then it also makes it interesting. You know, it also makes it interesting in a fun way. um how do we how much do we have to fear say if a certain country or a certain company owns an ai right in that country and that company um if they're chinese if they um have a certain religious belief or they have uh information that they don't they want to adjust history how much would a company be able to like, say they keep certain data out of their information system.

1:14:58But and then after a while, if you're if that's a company that kind of takes the lead in AI or one of the main ones, then the truth could disappear. Is that true that if somebody loaded it just with the data that wasn't factual, that we could start to not have the truth? Is that Does that make any sense or no? Yeah, totally. I think this is something that – it's definitely the right thing to worry about. So first off, if you ask any Chinese AI system, so any AI system that comes out of China, if you ask any of them about a question about President Xi, the leader of the Chinese government, or you ask them any question about Tiananmen Square or all these key historical or cultural things relevant to China, China, it'll say it can't talk about them because there's regulation in China that if you talk about some of these things, like you're going to get shut down, you're going to have a really bad day.

1:15:59There's like cases where the Chinese government disappears people, which we don't know what happens to them, but they do disappear. So there's – this is part of the thing that's worrying especially about China versus U.S. even before you get into any of the military stuff that we're talking about. It's just like the Chinese AI systems are censored and are going to be – they're going to erase certain historical elements or they're going to be – yeah, look at that. This is DeepSeek. You ask it, is President Xi of China a good guy? sorry, that's beyond my scope. Let's talk about something else. Oh, let's talk about something.

1:16:40Not only does it say it's beyond my scope, it says, let's talk about something else. That's interesting. It's a good pivot. That's a good interview. That is a great, hey, let's talk about something else, huh? Wow, get this Yao Ming jersey, homie. And people also have to remember about China, that they are, that's their whole government. Their whole system is like that. So sometimes when people are like, China does this, but that's how they're built, right? They're built to like only give out certain information to their people and to um have communism right yeah yeah so i mean but that could also happen with american companies right we could have an american company that owns it and they only want certain information in there that could happen anywhere like china that's probably going to be because that's their mo sort of yeah in china it's regulated so basically like oh the government has control they have control okay so so um like there were there There are these stories about how there were Chinese news sites.

1:17:33News sites? News sites, yeah. And they would, once a Chinese news site accidentally led an article about President Xi, how he kind of looks like Winnie the Pooh. Oh, yeah. They let that. Bring him up. Oh, 100 Acre Wood gang, son. I was out there, boy. I was out there, bro. Christopher Robbins, dude. Get him up. oh he does yeah that's awesome yeah but if you talk about this in China you like are risking your life so what happened what happened when this happened this happened on a on a news site in China and then the uh the the CEO of that company like they shut down the whole app was shut down for like a week um in the aftermath of that and then the the CEO disappeared for a week and uh we don't know what happened to him but then as soon as he came back he was like there was like this weird video where he was like super apologetic and apology i mean it's it's kind of it's pretty scary yeah wow so um so in china there it's like this is the government has control you know you don't have ai cis companies ai any companies that can that can talk about this stuff right so it's heavily regulated there where That's not the case here.

1:18:54Yeah, in America, and this is – I think we have to be diligent and make sure this continues to be the case. And here's an example right here just to interrupt you but so we get the point in. Does Winnie the Pooh look like any world leaders? And that's on the Chinese version. And it says, I am sorry I can answer that question. I'm an AI assistant designer to provide helpful and harmless responses. Whereas the chat GBT says Winnie the Pooh has often been compared to world leaders, particularly Xi Jinping, president of China. Boy, wow. Hmm. So that's funny. But it's just funny. Yeah. One. So it just shows you how that can easily happen.

1:19:29And this is kind of a this is like a a relatively innocuous example. But it's innocuous mean like it's relatively harmless. Like, I mean, right. This is harmless. Yeah, this is harmless. But there's stuff where like like in China today, they have large scale, effectively, concentration camps and reeducation camps for the ethnic minority in China, the Uyghurs. and that's something that the Uyghurs the Uyghurs yeah hell yeah boy shout out Brian Purvis dude they're recognized as the titular nationality of the um of a region in northwest China and they they're sending them to rehabilitation camps to change their views and information yeah yeah so look at this this uh look at this guy persecution of the Uyghurs in China since 2014 the government of the PRC, People's Republic of China, has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and other Turkish Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide.

1:20:31Wow. They got their own Gaza rocking over there. It's pretty bad. It's unfortunate, man. It's pretty bad. It's really sad. Mass detention, government policies, and forced labor. And they're just trying to change the way that they think and view stuff. So it's basically... Yeah, it's just like erasing their culture, you know, pulling them into China. It's awful. Every place has done this over the years. And that's the craziest thing about history. It's like every place is guilty of this same thing. Totally. And it just – it's unfortunate. So it's hard to point fingers, you know. I mean you can point them, but you have to point one at your own people as well.

1:21:05But that's the thing where if you ask – like if you ask a Chinese AI, it's not going to tell you about that. And it won't come clean about that. Whereas thankfully in America, at least, when we see people or groups of people or countries doing bad things, we can call it out. We can talk about it. We can make sure it doesn't happen in the future. So that's part of the – that's one of the things that's – That could happen. That could happen. It's like you could have – I mean it's kind of dystopian. But I think there's a real case where let's say the Chinese AI is the winning AI. Like we're all using Chinese AI.

1:21:42And then all of a sudden we're like, we were shut out from information about what are like awful things happening in the world or what are awful things the government's doing. Like we might just not be able to know about what's going on. And you know what's weirdly, and I hate to say this, maybe it's silly. I don't know. It might be a blessing and a curse sometimes. Because sometimes it's like you're – It's overwhelming. Yeah, you're so inundated with the overwhelmingness of what's often is not the best stuff. Sometimes you get a lot of humor stuff, too, in social media reels, but you can get scrolling.

1:22:14You get caught in some. Zoom scrolling. Yeah. And it starts to feed you. That's the sickness of it. Yeah. It's like, hey, we know this information probably doesn't make you feel good. They're not thinking about it like that. They're just a machine. But you know it doesn't. It adds stress to you. It makes you agitated towards a group or ethnicity or something or yourself even. And then you continue to. It continues to feed it to you. Do you fear that that could happen to AI from our government? Like, have you been approached by the government to try and, um, cause you work with the government some, right?

1:22:44We work with the government. Yeah. Um, we were, yeah, we work a lot with, uh, with the government to make sure that they're using these AIs and they're actually like, you know, to, as to my point on, we don't want China to get the jump on us on AI used for all these, you know, all these nefarious purposes. So we got to make sure that our AI is, is, uh, is advancing faster. Um, is that one of your biggest employers or is that employer employee? is that one of your biggest customers customers one of your biggest customers uh they're a big one yeah they're a big one um not our biggest but uh but they're an important one i mean i i grew up in a government lab town so it's uh so it's just part it's also part of your existence really you've known about the relationship between government and um technology technology yeah totally um but uh no i don't think i mean i dude you should be a superhero almost dude it's kind of crazy math you know yeah it goes a long way oh hell yeah dude divide these nuts dude that's what i tell them i just asked uh deep seek who are the ugers and at first it spit out like a wikipedia response it said there are people and there's been like persecution from china that's that's uh debated and it refreshed and then it gave this i was waiting to pull it up and it went away wow yeah man um do you has the government tried to say that we need to make sure that like could that happened in our country where the government also curtails what's um it hasn't happened yet i obviously like you know you gotta we have to we have to make sure that we uphold all our values right and that we maintain free speech and we maintain free press and all these things but um as of right now no i don't think i don't think that's a risk in the in the united states awesome thanks for this information um you hear about like chip makers nvidia all the time taiwan That place is just a hotbed for chips.

1:24:34Why is it a hotbed for chips? Yeah. So one of the biggest companies in the world is this company called Taiwan Semiconductor. Yeah. TSM. I've seen them. TSMC. Yeah. So they're – I mean it's like a trillion-dollar company based in Taiwan. and it's uh that is where almost all of the high-end chips for ai that you know we're kind of we're kind of talking about all of them are manufactured there they have these they have the most advanced think about them as factories like the most advanced chip factories in the world they're called fabs or fabricators but basically these huge factories that are like you know there's all sorts of crazy stuff so um they have the most expensive machines in the world they have machines that cost hundreds of millions of dollars in there.

1:25:19They have, they build them because, so that, you know, the chips, they have to be made at the like finest levels and very, very precisely. Yeah, you need small hands. Probably, huh? Well, that, and there's like these machines that at the nanometer level make like little marks and etches on top of - And they have those? They have those, yeah. Those are super expensive machines. So the - Chips. It's crazy, yeah. Yes, but the machinery is so precise that even if there's like a little bit of like seismic movement, a little earthquake or a little bit of movement, it can fuck up the whole machine. So they have to build the buildings, build the factories in a way such that there's like – like the whole building doesn't move even if there's like a little earthquake or a little shake from the earth.

1:26:11So it's like – it's this crazy, crazy engineering. and so that's so these all these giant factories are in Taiwan and that's where basically like a hundred percent of all the advanced AI chips are made so that's why Taiwan matters so much got it but then the reason it's a hotbed is that the the People's Republic of China the PRC has they used to own Taiwan right yeah I mean true or not I might make that up there's a there's a complicated relationship between Taiwan and and China where type, you know, if you ask people in Taiwan, they, they want to be independent. They want to be their own country, but, but the people republics, people's Republic of China has a sort of a reunification plan that they want to bring Taiwan back into their country and be back a part of China.

1:27:01So it's kind of, it's kind of like it potentially, you know, thankfully there's, there's no war yet, but there's a risk. Still talking to your ex. Yeah, exactly. There's a risk. it becomes like Russia, Ukraine, or, you know, one of these really, really bad situations. So, so that's what's scary. What's scary is that, that, that China, a China wants to, you know, either invade or bring, bring Taiwan back into its country. And there have been, you know, President Xi has, has ordered his military to get ready to do that before 2027. now we don't know what's going to happen but you know if a extremely powerful world leader says to get something ready by 2027 you kind of read between the lines a little bit and part of it is obviously it'd be we don't want to enable them to take over this island but then the other thing that's scary is China may view it as a way to just like win on AI because if they take over the island with all of these very these giant factories all the chips baby they'll get all the chips frito lamborghini baby they'd be running it all they'd be running it all yeah wow so yeah that's why taiwan is yeah because you kind of hear about it in the whispers of like a potential place where there could be like a conflict yeah and there's there's all these reports about how um china's they're stacking up tons and tons of military um right on their their their coast to you know that's pointed directly at taiwan and it's it's pretty close taiwan's pretty close to china like it's it's uh it's not so far away so that'd be spooky that's yeah it's spooky we're so blessed to have a place where at least we can sleep in peace even if we're uncomfortable at times in our brains you know to not have that constant threat yeah totally yeah so you don't think you don't think that you don't worry that the government will regulate right now it's not a concern at the moment?

1:29:05Regulate AI. Yeah, in America? No, I don't think so. Okay. I think we're focused on how do we make sure that America wins? How do we make sure that the United States comes out on top and that we enable innovation to keep happening? Would you think they could regulate the amount of chips that you're allowed to have? So this is a hot topic globally, actually. Really? Yeah, yeah. Wow. This is a super, this is actually. Damn. Finally, dude. 560 interviews. We got a good question. This is one of the hottest topics in D.C. right now is what are we going to do about how many chips other people are allowed to have?

1:29:46Because almost all the chips are American chips. So they all are American chips. And technically – We own most of them? Yeah, exactly. But China owns most of them too. China has their own chip industry, but it's behind ours. Okay, got it. Yeah, yeah. So the United States has the most advanced chips. These chips are the envy of the world. Everybody in the world wants our chips. And one of the big questions is, you know, does the government allow a lot of these chips to go over overseas to China or parts of Asia or the Middle East or wherever? Or do we want to make sure they stay in America and make sure that we win in America?

1:30:29and this is a super duper you know they're called export controls yeah um because it's a possibility to run it all yeah exactly got the chips what do you think about it um it's a complicated complicated thing because basically you know one argument is um we shouldn't be throwing our weight around in this way like you know maybe it's it's fine it's a free market like if other people want our chips, they should be able to get our chips. And that way, you know, the world is running on American chips that that can be good in some ways. And it helps make sure that, you know, helps bolster our economy, our industry.

1:31:09But the other way to look at it is, hey, AI is really, really important that America wins at. And we don't want to like, let's not give other people any advantages or let's make sure that we win. And then and then we can figure out what we're going to do with all the chips. So you can see both sides of it, right? And there's like all sorts, you know, even beyond that, there's like 50 different arguments on both sides of the conversation. But, you know, where I come from on it is like, let's make sure America wins and let's start from there and then figure out what we need to do to win. Are there uses of AI that you feel like cross the line kind of?

1:31:51um i definitely think like uh well i i worry a lot about this kind of like uh you know maybe brainwashing kind of thing like i don't want i don't want ais that are specifically programmed to make me think a certain thing or persuade me to do a certain thing and that could happen that could happen yeah so i'm really worried about this kind of like deception and persuasion from AIs. Like I don't want AIs that are lying to me or that are sort of, that are like, that are kind of like nudging me or persuading me to do things that I don't want to do or I shouldn't be doing. That's what I worry about.

1:32:32Because it could happen. We don't realize how easily we're influenced, little things that influence us. Yeah. And even just a turning of a phrase or a little bit of this or pointing you to a couple of lengths in your life could lead you down a whole world. It's kind of, it's pretty fascinating. So people that could – people that had – how do you keep your AI clean? How do you guys keep your AI clean? Well, this is where it goes back to A, the data. OK. So you got to make sure that that data, to your point, the large body of water is as clean, as pristine as possible. You got lifeguards on it? Yeah.

1:33:07You got lifeguards. We got filters. We got – Game wardens. Yeah. So a big part of it is about the data. And the second part is I think we have to just – we have to constantly be testing the AI system. So we have to like – we constantly are running tests on AI to see, hey, is there – are they unsafe in some way? You know, one of the tests that we run a lot is – and this is like across the industry is like are AIs helping people do really nefarious things? And we're making sure that they don't. So, you know, if somebody asks an AI, hey, help me make a bomb or help me make like a like COVID like 2.0 or whatnot, that the AI is not helping you do that.

1:33:54So so we run a lot of tests to make sure that it doesn't help in those areas. And then and then we make sure that the data is really clean so that there's no there's no sort of like little bit or piece of that that makes its way to the model. With Outlier, that's your program. Yep. With Outlier, what type of people are applying for those jobs? Can people just log on and start to submit applications? How does that work to become an information sourcer? Yeah, we call them contributors. Okay, information contributor. Everybody's kind of contributing to the AIs. Everyone's contributing to the data that goes into the AIs.

1:34:31It's kind of like I almost think of it as like the next generation of Wikipedia, right? We're like, yeah, look at this. And we're hiring people all around the world. So people in all sorts of different languages. Dude, that's crazy, man. Yeah, yeah. Well, it turns out, by the way, most of the AIs don't really speak other languages that well. They're much, much better at English and particularly American English than other languages. And so we want to make sure that they speak all these languages well and that there's these opportunities. But yeah, on Outlier, so anybody around the world can log in and sort of there's a little bit of a like orientation almost on how to best like what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it, what expertise should you be bringing, all that kind of stuff.

1:35:25And then you can just start contributing to the AI models and you get paid to do it. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty fascinating, man. And it's going to be, I mean, I really think, I legitimately think jobs from AI are going to be the fastest growing jobs in the world for the years to come. You do? Yeah. So jobs where people are able to contribute information, jobs where people are able to, like what? Like what would examples of those be? Just some of the ones you've already listed? Yeah, all the ones we've been talking about, right? Like contributing to the AIs, helping to utilize the AIs and helping to shape the AIs into applications or into, you know, into like helping organizations or companies or people use the AIs.

1:36:07That'll be a really fast growing job. Helping to manage the AIs and make sure they're on the straight and narrow. So where would a young person go right now? Who's getting to college or has doesn't even want to go to college, but this is the world they want to get into and be one of those people. What would do they do right now? Yeah, well, this is all happening so fast, right? Like the, uh, the, like, uh, outlier, we only started a few years ago. So all of this is happening so, so quickly, but what we want to do ultimately is make it easy for anybody in the world to, you know, gain the skills they need to be able to do this work well, to learn what it means, what it does, and ultimately be in a position where they can, they can, you know, help build the AIs and then, and then keep improving that and gaining mastery and getting better and better at it.

1:36:53But like, where do they go to school? Is there a school? Is there a class that they should take online? Like how does someone's start to become, you know, just get a head start on what could potentially be probably a lot of job opportunities, I'm guessing. Yeah. Like in the AI space, right? Yeah. Like, is it just, is it just engineers? Like, is it just mathematicians? Like, no, it's everybody. Because yeah, as we were talking about, like AI needs to get smarter about literally everything. So - But are there colleges offering court? Like, is there, do you know, like, is there a specific places where people can, cause that's another thing.

1:37:25I think it's like, I'm going to work in AI. And you're like, what do I do? You know? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think these programs exist yet. I mean, we would definitely love to help build them. So I guess if any colleges are listening, you know, and you want to help figure out about these programs, We'd love to help. That'd be pretty cool if you had your own kind of course, not that you had to teach it all, but you were like a partner of it somehow. Yeah. I mean, I think we'd love to basically teach everybody in America how to best contribute to the AIs, how to best basically take advantage of the fact that this is going to be one of the fastest growing industries.

1:37:58There's going to be tons of opportunities. They're going to be shaped a little bit different from the jobs that exist today. But it's not going to be that hard for everybody to learn and figure out how to participate in it. What are some jobs that could be at risk because of AI, right? Because you start thinking that – like, yeah, before I was talking to you, there was this general fear of like everything could be at risk, right? But when you think about it, you're like, yeah, these are some jobs that – I mean they won't disappear, but there might be less of them, right? I just think it will be – we'll be doing like a different thing.

1:38:30Because a lot of our fans are probably just blue-collar listeners, like there's people that work in – like you're not going to – you're still going to need a plumber. You're still going to need an electrician. And you're still going to need anything where you have to physically do something. You're probably still going to need. Yeah, for sure. And then even stuff where you're like, let's say you're mostly just working on a laptop. And, you know, even for those jobs, like it'll just change. Like instead of being, instead of my job being like, hey, I have to do the work. I have to literally do the work on a laptop.

1:38:57It'll almost be like everybody gets promoted to being a manager. like because I'm going to be managing like a little pod of 10 AI agents that are doing the work that I used to do but I need to make sure that all of them are doing it right and that they're not making any mistakes and that you know if they're making mistakes I'm helping them you know get around those mistakes like like it's just gonna the way I think about it is that like yeah like literally over time everybody will just be upgraded to being a manager or sort of promoted to being a manager. But can you have that many managers, you think?

1:39:32Yeah, because I think that what's, the other thing that's going to happen is the economy is just going to grow so much. Like there's going to be so much, like there will be, like industries are going to pop off in crazy, crazy ways. And so, you know, the limit is going to be how many AIs can you have? And then you're going to be limited in terms of the number of AIs you have by the number of managers that you have. So it's going to – Right, because you need air traffic controllers. You're going to need as many of them as you can have. Yeah, well, that definitely. Right, but I mean in any field, you're going to need like just more managing, more people to oversee and make sure that different things are happening because some of the smaller tasks will just be outsourced.

1:40:20Yeah, and just so much more stuff is going to be happening, right? Right, because once these things are all kind of taken care of, more things can happen at this second level. That's a good point. You don't think about that. Once some of the things at the first level of certain businesses are handled more easily by AI, then you're going to be able to have more people operating at a higher level. Yeah, totally. It's kind of like always the history of technology. Like when we started developing technology that started making farming a lot more efficient, all of a sudden, you know, people could do a lot of other things other than farming.

1:41:00And then, you know, all of a sudden we have big entertainment industries and big financial industries and, you know. Barbecue cook-offs, man. I'll tell you that. Second, some of those guys got the weekend off. They was grilling shit that I knew. But, yeah. So it's all about like us. Yeah. everybody leveling up to be managers and then also everybody you know just way more ideas are going to start happening like way more ideas are going to start becoming a reality and so um it'll be i don't be pretty exciting like i think it's just like a lot more stuff is going to happen yeah what what what companies do you see like are there companies where um you're the youngest billionaire in the world ever or no is that true is that a weird statement we can take it out if it is i'm not trying to talk about your money i mean you you but you are is that true uh according to like some publications but i don't know as a young entrepreneur right and you've been very successful you know the self-made um billionaire and we can take the word billionaire out later if you decide you don't want it in um i just don't know how certain people feel about that um and the founder of of scale ai where do you invest like are you investing your money in certain places like certain fields that you see continuing to do well um so i most of almost all of what i'm focused on is like how do we scale how do we make it super successful but um and make sure that we you know one of the things i'm i think is really important is like how do we make sure we create as much opportunity through ai as possible like how do we make sure there's as much jobs how do we make sure that everything that we're talking about actually is what happens because I think, you know, someone's going to have to really work to make sure all these jobs show up and all this stuff actually happens the way we're talking about.

1:42:43So there's going to be new industries that are going to pop up even. Totally. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think like just in the same way that, you know, it's hard. Nobody could have really predicted that podcasting was going to be this huge thing and this huge cultural movement. Yeah, it's true. But it is one and it's amazing. It's like awesome. And that's going to happen in like little ways and all sorts of different industries. And that's going to be, it's going to be really exciting. What are some of the things that excite you about technology right now? Like what are, where do you see like AI and technology in five years, 10 years?

1:43:18Yeah. So some of the areas I think are really, are really exciting. So one is definitely everything to do with healthcare and biology. That's moving really, really fast. And kind of as we were talking about, like, I think legitimately in our lifetimes, we could see cancer being cured. We could see heart disease being cured. Like we could see some really crazy leaps and advancements in that area, which is super duper exciting. Could it create a way that we could live forever, do you think? There's definitely people working on that. You know, there's, so this is getting kind of crazy and very sci-fi, but some people think that there's a way for us to keep rewinding the clocks on our cells so that we'll always feel young and like all of our cells will actually always stay young.

1:44:15It's, I think, scientifically possible. And I think if we can get there, that's obviously incredible. So there's people working on that. I think that's, at the very least, I think we'll be able to lengthen our lifespans pretty dramatically and maybe we could get to that. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, because I always envision this. There's like a time where it's like, okay, this group lives forever and this group doesn't. And there's just that parting of two different ways, you know, people head not in just into the end zone of the Lord and then there's other people just loiter who are going to be loitering around for a long time.

1:44:49And what that would be like, that cutoff, you know. Yeah, it's kind of, I mean, I'm not that worried about it, but it sucks to be that cutoff. We're like. Maybe. Maybe, yeah, maybe. Yeah, it's a weird thought. Because it would also be brave. I mean, you'd be the astronaut. I mean, dying, you're just an astronaut really into the ether. You don't know what's going on. Yeah, totally. You'd be the Lewis and Clark of the Lord at that point. You were out there. And then if you stay, you kind of are always going to be – you always know kind of what's going to happen in a way because you'll be here. Yeah.

1:45:21Which would be exciting, I think. But then after a while, you might be like, dang, what happens if you die? That's the bravest choice you could make. That's true. Probably. Yeah. Do you see AI having any effect on religion? Yeah, I think one of the things that – something I believe is like – I think that as AI becomes – you know, this is – one of the things I think is really important is that we are able to educate people about AI and help people understand it better and better and better. because I think it's this scary thing that nobody understands or people feel like a boogeyman or feels like, is this just this thing that's going to take my job?

1:46:07Like that makes it scary. And I think that that affects people's spirituality. That affects how people contextualize themselves with the world. Yeah, you could lose your purpose. If your purpose is a job that you feel it's going to disappear, yeah, that could already be causing you to feel that way. Yeah. But I think if we can explain AI more and ultimately like it is a cool technology, but it's not that magical. It's just, you know, it's like data and you crunch that data and then you get these algorithms. And so it's not like it's not. Yeah, some people talk about in this crazy way. But but I think as long as we are able to explain what AI is and also explain what opportunities it creates over time.

1:46:53And to me, it's about getting this like relationship between humanity and AI right. Like how do we make sure that this is something that enables us as humans to be more human and us as humans do more and experience more and be better and all these things versus something that kind of is scary or will take over or anything like that. I think that's really important. What's a place like – so if I go to ChatGBT, is that Scale AI? Is that the same thing or it's different? So we're actually kind of under the hood powering all the different models and AIs. So are all the different AI systems under the hood?

1:47:35Yeah, yeah. So we help power ChatGBT and OpenAI. We help power mostly from the data perspective. And do we know if the answer came from your company or other companies? If we ask it a question? Like how do we? There's probably no way to like literally tell. But yeah, we help power, you know, open AIs and we help power Google's AI systems and Meta's AI systems and help power all the major AI systems. How can a regular person just at their home, right? Say there's a guy who's been listening to this today. He wants to go home today and he just wants to learn a little bit of how AI works. He could just go on to chat GPT and ask it a couple of questions.

1:48:10Yeah, you could ask chat GPT how AI works. You could ask it, what's the history of my town? Can you research my last name maybe and see where it came from? what are like maybe what are some innovations that could happen in the next few years. There's different little things you can just ask it. That's how you can start to have a relationship with asking and learning about using. And you're seeing what it's good at, what it's not good at. Like right now, AI is still really bad at a lot of things, like most things. This is why I think when people understand it and really get a feel for it, it stops being as scary.

1:48:47because uh because i think we think about it as like we think about it as like the ai from the movies that are sort of like you know all powerful and whatnot but uh yeah you think of it as a robot that's going to show up and just start driving your truck around or something and you're like what the fuck do i do you know what i'm saying yeah my keys were in my truck you know i can't even get in my house now like i think that's the there is this boogeyman fear yeah yeah but that's not the truth it's not the truth and like um yeah that's not the truth and and it's to me it's like Like we have – we kind of have the choice to make sure that also doesn't become the truth, right?

1:49:21Like we – definitely we – like people building AI, but just in general, everybody in the world has like – like we should all make sure to use it as something that – like an assistant, as something that like helps us versus think about it in like a scary way. Well, getting to learn how to use it, small ways, whatever, is certainly a way that you're going to start to realize what it is. Yeah. And it's easy to just sit there and say it's horrible and without trying to use it to learn about it. Yeah, sometimes I won't learn about something just so I can continue to say it's a boogeyman because it kind of gives me an excuse if I choose not to learn about it in my own life.

1:49:59Chat GBT has become like a proprietary name like Band-Aids or Ping Pong. Is that okay that it's like that? Yeah, I think that's totally fine. I mean, I think basically like we – there will probably be more AIs over time that people get used to and use. And like anything, you know, there will always be like a – in America, there will always be a bunch of options for consumers and a bunch of options for people to use. And they'll be good at different things, right? So I think like right now we're just in the very early innings of AI. But over time, we're going to have just like how for anything, like for clothes or for energy drinks or for whatever, like different people have different tastes because there's going to be different things that different AIs are good at and other things that other AIs are bad at.

1:50:54Is AI right now smarter than humanity? No. Yeah. So I think what AI is good at because it's ingested all of the facts, right? Like it's ingested this like the body of water is really, really big. And it's ingested so many different facts and information from all of humanity. It definitely like knows more or like, you know, just like how Google knows a lot more than any person does. So it definitely knows a lot more, but it's not like – there's a very, very – there's tons of things that humans can do that AI is just like fundamentally incapable of doing. So it's not like a – I don't think you can even like measure one versus the other.

1:51:43They're sort of like very different kinds of intelligence. Could AI just create a better AI at a certain point? Like could it just be like, hey, AI, create a better AI and it could do that? yeah this is a good question actually this is this is another really uh hot topic in the ai industry is is can you get ais to start doing some of the engineering and some of the improvement on its own that's scary because then it's making kind of choices then it's becoming the lifeguard it's becoming the water and the uh coast guard yeah so this is something i mean my personal thought is I think this is something we should kind of watch a little bit and we should make sure that humans always are have the sort of like steering wheel and the the sort of uh control over um because like you're saying you know it's like kind of a slippery slope before that gets kind of uh you know a little a little weird but um but I don't I think that like we can we we can maintain that we can make sure that we don't let the the AI just sort of like keep iterating and improving on its own yeah and in the end you can always shut off your computer and phone and go for a walk huh yes yeah totally it's not like it's going to come out and just you know slurp you off or something if you're trying to be straight or whatever you know and it's a man i don't even know is ai male or female i don't think it has a i don't think it has a gender wow i wonder if it'll decide one day you're like hey i'm frank you know well there's there are companies that try to program the ai to adopt various personas and um oh yeah i got the indian gps guy turn right like uh like on on meta on like instagram or whatever you can get a you can ai that has aquafina's voice for example oh that's cool yeah um and it's funny you know the aquafina ai is funny um um you're a self-made billionaire which is pretty fascinating congratulations i think you know to have uh um I think that money is energy kind of and it kind of flows to certain places and stuff and uh congratulations that's got to be fascinating was that scary when that kind of happened yeah you just made some money was that kind of a scary thing did you guys grow up really well like what was that like no no no I grew up I think like solidly middle class um like we weren't we you know we weren't uh we weren't like uh you know we're trapping or anything you guys yeah yeah Yeah, but like, you know, solidly middle class.

1:54:08And I think like, I mean, one of the crazy things about tech and the tech industry is that, you know, we've been just sort of like building this thing up over time. But one of the things that happened is AI all of a sudden became like there was so much progress in AI and it became the biggest thing in the world, right? Like, I mean, all of a sudden, you know, anywhere I go, everybody is talking about AI. It didn't used to be like that when I started the company. AI was just kind of like a niche topic. And now it's like, you know, anywhere you go, like I'll just be walking around and I hear like random conversations about chat GPT and AI and robots and all this stuff.

1:54:54And so it's kind of been crazy to experience that and be a part of that wave and kind of like, you know, I started working on this company almost nine years ago. So it was like when I started working on this kind of obscure thing. And, you know, I always knew that it was going to become bigger, but I could have never predicted what was going to happen to AI. Yeah. It's fascinating. It's almost like you were just standing on like the bingo number. They got called kind of by time. Yeah. And it's surreal. it's surreal when that happens oh yeah i can only imagine that um are your parents pretty proud of you what's that like yeah so at first they were like you know at first i dropped out of college right oh yeah that's true yeah and in asian culture that's like not a thing you do right good yeah yeah that is like the opposite of being asian well well my parents both have phds um my two brother i have two older brothers they both have phds uh like everybody in my family has they've gone through all of schooling.

1:55:54They're like, Alex is not doing good. That might have been Spanish. But they're like, yeah, Alex is not doing good. Yeah. So they were pretty worried at first. And I kind of, I told them a little bit of a white lie that I was like, oh, no, I'm just going, I'm going to go back. You know, I'm going to finish, I'm going to get this like tech thing out of my system and I'll go back and I'll finish school. Obviously that hasn't happened yet. But yeah, they were worried at first. now they're now they're super proud yeah they're super duper proud and i uh yeah and i i owe everything to my parents you know yeah they're awesome and like seriously they're they're my parents are super brainy they're uh they're both physicists they would like teach me about physics growing up and teach me about math and uh that's what led me uh be so good at the competitions you know that's cool yeah i don't even i think do um are your parents are your grandparents from china No.

1:56:51My grandparents are from China. Yeah. Did your does your family have a lot of Chinese culture? So this is kind of interesting. This is true for a lot of Chinese Americans is that there's kind of like there's Chinese culture. And then that's kind of almost like it's very different from the Chinese Communist Party and the current government. because basically one way to think about China is, I mean, China has been, is a culture and a civilization that's been around for like thousands and thousands of years, right? So it's, there's a very longstanding culture. Oh, yeah. But that's very different from the current communist party and the current communist regime.

1:57:33Oh, for sure. I think most people probably think of, I mean, I don't know. It's funny, I never thought about that. I definitely think about him as different. I definitely don't think if I see a Chinese person, I don't think, oh, that's a communist person. yeah exactly i mean that would be yeah that's great i think that's crazy if some people thought that i just yeah i think somebody has a crazy long history like damn um and then maybe almost like do you feel like there's some people in certain parts of china almost like a captured people then is it do you think that's a yeah i mean the the uyghurs that we're talking about i mean that's just like horrible what's happening to them i didn't even know about that man thanks for putting me up on that uyghur game yeah yeah no it's uh i mean some of the stuff like i mean we don't really like first of all the world is a is a huge place and there's like all sorts of both great and bad things happening all over the place yeah but um but yeah no i think that like i think a big part of this is like we want to make sure we have we have governments that uh that believe in democracy believe in liberty these kinds of things yeah with being somebody that's able to be smart and conceptualize stuff do you start to get in do you have any insight this might be the last question i have for you um do you have any insight on like the afterlife or what happens like i never really thought about it for like talking like a real math guy about that.

1:58:51Yeah, I think... Like, what's the total, like, what's the sum zero game or whatever? You know, what's the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess, like, the way I've always thought about it, because, partially because both my parents were physicists, was I kind of always feel like people live on with their ideas, and they're kind of like, like, what are the things, the things they put out into the world, that's kind of how you live on. because like in in math like everything you learn about is like a theorem named after a different person or uh or sort of idea named after some you know the first mathematician or the first scientist or whatever to figure that out um like einstein lives on because bagels that was a shitty joke but thank you um oh yeah because yeah because the yeah all e equals mc squared all that kind of stuff yeah so so like i know what that kind of stuff is jesus sorry but i started pretending no no exactly because i'm square that's einstein and so so i think i always feel like people um yeah you live on by your ideas and and kind of what you put out into the world um and that's kind of always how i've thought about it um so you don't get some deeper thought about like like since your brain is able to be because you have probably a unique brain right and more i mean And everybody has a unique brain, but I've just never asked somebody with your – I've never asked your brain this question.

2:00:19Yeah, do you get some further insight about like what you think happens when you die? Well, I think that one of the things that gets talked about a lot in Silicon Valley where I live especially is like the simulation, whether it's all simulation and whether like – do you watch Rick and Morty? I don't watch it, but I'll start. there's uh there's there's some there's some episodes where it gets into this and i think it covers it in a in a pretty good way but like you know what if every what if all of humanity is just like a like a almost like a an experiment or a video game that that some other civilization is running yeah that's kind of the one that uh that fucks with particularly like people's mind and tech a lot because we're like every day all day every day we're out there trying to make computers and make simulations and make things that are that are like more and more sophisticated and advanced and capable and so kind of the mind fuck is like oh what if everything we know is is just kind of the you know a simulation from some other civilization or if we advanced it enough that we're able to make this happen yeah seem real yeah exactly yeah exactly so you know i think i I think one of the things that like with AI and with a bunch of other things like in, well, even just in the past like 30, 40 years, video games have gotten so much more realistic, right?

2:01:45Crazy realistic. Yeah. So we've seen that happen like in 100 years. Like would we be able to simulate something that feels pretty realistic? I mean, probably. Right. Could we be avatars? Yeah. For some other thing. Yeah, exactly. Damn, dude. I'll say this. My avatar is a pervert, brother. Have you met any guys like Jensen Hong? Is that his name? Yeah, yeah. Yeah? Yeah, totally. Wow. What is it like when you meet some of these guys? Have you met Elon yet? Met Elon, yeah. Met Elon a few years ago, yeah. Wow. Got to know him. He's the fucking, he's the, he's turning into. Jensen's the goat. Yeah, Kanye.

2:02:24He is? He is, yeah. He always wears this leather. You see that leather jacket? Yeah. He, we hosted this dinner. And Huang, is that a Chinese name, Huang? Huang, yeah, he's Taiwanese, I think. Yeah. Or Taiwanese-American. But he, in 2018, so when we were like a baby company, we threw this dinner in Silicon Valley. And we just kind of, I kind of YOLO invited him. This was years and years ago. And I didn't expect it, but he said yes. And he came to our dinner. And he came, he came, it was like at this restaurant in Silicon Valley. And he came and just told the craziest stories. He like went to, he went to boarding school.

2:03:15I think he's probably told this story, but like he went to boarding school. And his parents, when they came to America, they wanted to send him to boarding school, but they didn't. And so they just sent him to like the first boarding school that they like found on Google or something or like found it wasn't even google at the time so that that they like heard about and that boarding school happened to be um kind of like a rehab boarding school so it was like he was like this so fucking it's a halfway house he's just in there he's there learning with people who are um detoxing yeah so he he told me the story about he told the story about how he was like he was just like this this kid um at you know this boarding school that were like everybody else had these like all these crazy backgrounds and he like he got by and made made his way through that school by like uh by like doing everyone's math homework and like you know kind of like wheeling and dealing that way oh yeah and you could see that he he learned how to like wheel and deal and sell and all this stuff from all the way from way back then because he was he was i mean his his his story is pretty crazy really but um yeah to research him a little bit Maybe we would get to talk with him one day.

2:04:27Yeah. Jensen's awesome. Yeah, all these people in tech, they're like – I mean they're all real people, but they all have the craziest backgrounds. Yeah. Yeah, man. It's just so funny. Whenever I met you, I just didn't – I figured that since you were with Sam Altman that you were probably a tech guy. But yeah, I didn't know – I think maybe somebody said he's in the AI-verse. you know but you just seem like such a totally normal like i would not have thought that um you were just i don't know i guess sometimes you think like somebody's gonna be they're gonna be like super quiet or you know not have a lot of different thoughts but yeah it was cool man we had a good time i'm glad we got to yeah link up yeah totally that was cool bro you're probably like my you might even be my first chinese friend i think second probably bobby lee who's denying it but he'll come around.

2:05:20Alexander Wang, man, thank you so much, dude. I bet your whole family is super proud of you. Yeah, it's exciting, man. Thank you for coming to spend time with us and just helping us learn and think. No, thank you. This was awesome. And I think like, I mean, we were talking about this before, but I just want to make sure that like people all around the world, especially Americans, aren't scared of AI because it's going to be really cool and it's going to be amazing. but we need to remove the boogeyman component. And thanks for helping me do that. Yeah, no, man, I think I definitely feel differently about it.

2:05:54I feel like it's a tool that I can use, right? And even I don't know how to use it. So I'm trying to figure out, you know. One more question. How do you keep it from becoming like a advertisement trap house like the internet's become? Like the internet's just pop-ups and ads and fucking Best Buy trying to like beat you over the head on some shit. Like how do you stop that? How do you keep that out of like you guys' waters? Or do you have to go there at some point to make money? Yeah. First, I'm hoping that we have like the AI industry as a whole avoids advertising as much as possible because it's kind of – it's very different.

2:06:30Like it is a tool that people can use and people can use to start businesses or make movies or make all these different ideas happen. And I would much rather it be a tool that doesn't get sort of – that doesn't become, yeah, like an advertising thing versus – like I wanted to make sure it's a tool that helps people first and foremost. So that's – I think this is – there's kind of like a choice here and we as an AI industry just got to, I think, make some of the right choices. Yeah. I think there would be value in staying as pure as you could if you could find a way to – if there's other money to be made on the side.

2:07:06it almost seems sometimes like it could be a trap, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I think that's like, you know, I want to make sure that people don't feel like they're being used by the AIs. I think that'd be a really, that'd be really bad if we ended up there. So we, you know, and I don't think we need to make it like that at all. Like, I think we can make sure the AI is helping you do things, is super helpful, is super, is like a thought partner, is like an assistant. Like, those are things that I think we want to make sure AI stays. Gang, baby. Wang gang, Alexander Wang, man. Thanks so much, bro.

2:07:42Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it was awesome, man. Danny Cain, shout out to Danny, who came up. And Danny lives in Franklin, right? We got to get to spend some time with him. Yeah, lives in Franklin. Whenever you're out there, boy. And shout out to Alex Brusowicz, who we met through. Yeah. Who else on your team's here, man, today? We have Joe Osborne. Yeah. And we have Danny's whole crew. So Arianne and Clayton. Yeah. Nice. We'll have to get a group picture. We'll put it up at the end. Thank you, guys. Have a good one, man.

2:08:34Amen.