Reid riffs on AI regulation

This week, Aria asks Reid about government regulation of AI, including where the U. S. fits in on the global stage and how America can learn from where the early regulation of social media fell short. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Reid Hoffman?

  I'm Reid Hoffman.

• 0:02Aria Finger?

  And I'm Aria Finger.

• 0:03Reid Hoffman?

  We want to know what happens if, in the future, everything breaks humanity's way.

• 0:08Aria Finger?

  Typically, we ask our guests for their outlook on the best possible future. But now, every other week, I get to ask Reid for his take.

• 0:18Reid Hoffman?

  This is possible.

• 0:26Aria Finger?

  So Reid, obviously, everyone is talking about AI. And specifically, a lot of people are wondering how we should regulate this new technology, if at all. And so how would you characterize how the US and other governments are regulating AI? And what would you like to see more of?

• 0:43Reid Hoffman?

  Well, the good news, unlike typical technology regulation issues, is that a lot of very good progress has been made and is heading in good ways. So you've, and you know, obviously, while I'm a

• 0:59Reid Hoffman?

  massive fan of the Biden administration on many different fronts, for what they're doing for everyday Americans, you know, I think the leading dog in this race so far is the UK. I think the UK setting up the AI Safety Institute and kind of getting off the ground has been spectacular. Now, Secretary Raimondo came over and helped with that because part of, one of the things that is obvious is just awesome about her capabilities is she goes, "Look, we just have to get the job done. We have to make sure that we're benefiting Americans. It's not about a footrace for, you know, who does what first, but is that we all, like that Americans get there in a really good way.

• 1:42Reid Hoffman?

  And obviously, you know, our allied countries and our partners, you know, part of the role of America always is to, is to play a great catalyst and partner and enabler. And Secretary Raimondo does that. But the UK AI Safety Institute got up, got funded. We're still working on the funding for ours. This is one of the challenges that we have of separation of the three branches of government and making that happen. So it's not Secretary Raimondo's fault, but the US is working very closely and playing a global role, but is kind of next in line. Now, that being said, both the US and the UK were enormously benefited by Biden's

• 2:22Reid Hoffman?

  process to the executive order, which was first haul the companies in, spend a lot of time in intense dialogue, get a set of voluntary commitments, derive from those voluntary commitments, what are the right things to do that protect against risks while encouraging and getting the innovation where our capabilities will be greater in the future? Then looking at those and going, okay, well, what is the thing that we can move on quickly? Hence, executive order, because it's a subset of the things that you could potentially do, because it's the things that the Biden administration is very careful about, like, where do the constitution and rule of law give us our powers, which are things that we can do that are legal and operational?

• 3:04Reid Hoffman?

  So we'll do these, but they're based off the voluntary commitments, but now across all US companies and how they're playing a global role. And then that, of course, creates the stage for how Congress can talk about this, what kinds of things can happen, what are the considerations? And then when you get to other governments also in the world that are doing good work, Macron, the French, are going to have a kind of safety summit coming up. They've been playing a very good job within the European context about like saying, hey, look, let's innovate in the future and innovate into the right integration in the society versus try to stop the future.

• 3:47Reid Hoffman?

  Too often, the regulation is like, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. Let's try to make as little of the future happen as possible and as slowly as possible, which is the general kind of European regulatory response on this stuff. And instead, it's like, look, there's so many different benefits we can get, medical assistance, tutors, industry, cognitive industrial revolution, let's be playing forward. And fortunately, that's also being shown out within a set of startups within Paris and the kind of the French economy and outside of the US, China and London. Paris is the next place that is, and you know, obviously their, their work is to get in the equal contention with London, is the next place where it's like, well, we're building

• 4:31Reid Hoffman?

  stuff and like executives in all industries want to talk about AI. And they want to say like, you know, how do we get, you know, the AI companies providing the industry and providing the society and what kinds of things we can be doing. And this is exactly the kind of thing that the government encouragement has been enabling and has been helping shape. And so this is the reason why it's good, you know, across, you know, not just the US and the Secretary Mondo's, you know, excellent leadership, but also the UK and France. And, you know, the work that's going on in the G7, you know, we saw, you know, one of the surprising things is the first time a Pope has addressed the G7 because, you know,

• 5:12Reid Hoffman?

  Pope Francis, you know, back in 2015, 2016 was already like, okay, what is this AI thing? What does it mean? How do I help on a positive basis? And so has already been working on it. And so was in a place where that when, you know, the G7 said, this is what we're going to meet on, they could invite, you know, Pope Francis and Pope Francis could come and say, here's the things that we've already been doing within the Vatican context. And here's the things that we think are important questions, important considerations. And again, you know, navigating the risks is super important, but part of navigating the risks is getting this, you know, really amazing future possibilities. And obviously part of how Pope Francis has been playing into this is say, look, the most natural thing within the developed worlds and technology companies and everything else

• 5:55Reid Hoffman?

  is to play for the wealthy markets. How do you build these services for the wealthy countries? And it's like, look, let's make sure that we're, that we're providing at equal time and equal capability to, to the global south, to many other markets that don't have the same rich economies, but could be benefited in their industries and their services, medical services, tutor services, education, you know, make sure that, you know, questions around climate change and other, and market participation or other things that are front and center. And by the way, not only the countries, but also the, all of the people in the countries, even the low income people in the countries.

• 6:36Reid Hoffman?

  And Pope Francis and the Vatican has been consistent in that in conversations I've had with them since 2016 of saying, let's make sure that these are front and center considerations. So overall, this is one of the areas where work has already started. It's making good progress. It's in motion. There's obviously still more work to do, but some of the governments that we care about are in motion in smart ways.

• 7:02Aria Finger?

  It seems that as with so much in our sort of dialogue these days, it's either black or white. It's either people saying zero government regulation ever, which seems pretty silly on the AI front, or way too much and we're going to stifle innovation. Just like you said, we're going to slow down. We're not going to get the growth to a medical assistance that we need. And I feel like a lot of people are making comparisons to social media. And some people think we got social media wrong. You know, the government should have stepped in more and regulated more. Is that leading to people sort of overreacting and calling for too much government regulation because they're comparing it to the social media issue? Or how do you compare those two?

• 7:40Reid Hoffman?

  Well, it's definitely leading to the vigorous called arms to strongly regulate because they went, look, we now know that there were clear problems with social media and we could have done something in advance. Now, the problem is, is most of the stuff we wouldn't have known in advance. And so even on the social media call is actually in fact, the wrong call. Now, if you said, well, what would you do if you called your younger selves and said, do something on social media? What you'd probably say is, work to be more vigorous about how you're protecting potential harms from children. Now, maybe we didn't fully notice it until the pandemic happened and then all intensified

• 8:20Reid Hoffman?

  it. And that's part of the reason why even that phone call to our younger selves might not have been, you know, kind of fully accurate. But that would be the phone call you'd say is like, if you could make a quick phone call and say, hey, start early, you probably start on that kind of thing. Because, you know, generally speaking, uh, when you're looking at a technology in the future, you could list out 200 things. And the question is, could you pick the one to three that actually really mattered? And he said, wow, well, the way to pick the one that really matters is do all 200. It's like, oh, then let's just not have any innovation. Let's not go, go to the future. And they said, well, but I know the right one. It's like, yeah, you and the other thousand people each have your right one or two, and you have this mayhem of discussion around it. So that's the, that's the, the balance of these things. And that's part of the reason why when you get to the AI side, it's like,

• 9:03Reid Hoffman?

  look, let's try to be focused and short on what the really key things are that are the only things that are absolutely critical to get right. Because most often, most of the things you're listing are actually naturally come out from the regulations, naturally kind of play out. And that's part of the reason why, you know, what the, what the Biden administration has done with the voluntary regulations and executive order, exactly right, is big. Let's be very focused. And then on the, on the thou shouts and shalt not, it's like, well, let's make it be that you're, you're working on red teaming and alignment. And let's make sure that you're reporting on it. And let's make sure that you're telling us when you're doing things that are of a certain scale that might have

• 9:45Reid Hoffman?

  some implication. And let's just start there. Right. In terms of the kinds of things that we're doing. And it's exactly right, because people say, well, we should then go and tell them exactly what they should do and they shouldn't do. It's like, well, not only do you, anybody in the government, anybody in regulation not know that, even the industry doesn't even really know that. The experts don't even really know that. So you have to kind of proceed in dialogue towards it. And that's the reason why, you know, asking questions, getting reports, tell us what you're doing, tell us what you're learning. That is actually, in fact, the right approach, which is, of course, the reason why the, the US and UK AI, you know, safety institutes are the right kinds of things to stand up is to have organizations that are in dialogue.

• 10:28Reid Hoffman?

  That are, you know, kind of persistent outside of, you know, just the usual politicking that happens, which is, you know, shocker. Politicians want to grandstand on whatever the current media issue is. And that doesn't really help us as a society, let alone as industries and companies in terms of doing that. But, you know, standing up these outside institutions that will be persistent, gathering knowledge, you know, talking academia, talking the industry, talking to leadership, talking to special interest groups, you're talking to other kinds of things to say, okay, what are the right issues? And let's be, let's start from a learn basis and from a watching basis and kind of go, you know, oh, this

• 11:10Reid Hoffman?

  may end up turning into the one really serious issue. Maybe we should intensify our dialogue first, really much about that. And then it's kind of see how it's playing out and see how it plays out within, you know, the large scale companies, the startups, you know, global competition and all the rest. And that's the reason why I think it is intensified because I've literally heard such absurd things like the same people who brought us social networks are bringing us AI. And that's why we should have some mistrust. And you're like, well, actually, in fact, a lot of people who are building AI weren't building social networks. There's so much seeing red that they go, well, Meta is doing AI and is a social network. And you're like, okay, there's one. And now, of course, Elon is doing his

• 11:52Reid Hoffman?

  thing too, you know, with Twitter. But Elon's Twitter, which I think has a lot of problems around, you know, bots and, you know, virulent attack speech on women and a bunch of other things that are real problems that should be addressed. And, you know, I think it's a travesty in the, in the, in the media circle that that's not what's being talked about. But like, that's not the old school. He wasn't the person who brought Twitter to you in the first place. Right? But he's now building AI too. Anyway, so, so it's just like they see red and they don't understand that actually, in fact, they're, they're actually just different problems. And the, the principles that you can learn from social network side are not really, have only incidental things about what we're doing on the AI side.

• 12:41Reid Hoffman?

  Possible is produced by Wondra Media Network. It's hosted by Aria Finger and me, Reid Hoffman. Our showrunner is Sean Young. Possible is produced by Katie Sanders, Edie Aller, Sarah Schlead, Adrian Bain, and Paloma Moreno Jimenez. Jenny Kaplan is our executive producer and editor.

• 13:00Aria Finger?

  Special thanks to Surya Yalamanchili, Sayida Sepieva, Ian Ellis, Greg Beato, Ben Relis, Parth Patel, and Little Monster Media Company.