E563 AI CEO Alexandr Wang

Alexandr Wang is the founder and CEO of Scale AI, a platform that provides data training for AI programs. In 2021 he was named the youngest self-made billionaire in the world by Forbes at the age of 24. Theo is joined by Alexandr Wang to talk all about AI and how it’s changing our world fast. They discuss Alex’s choice to drop out of MIT to pursue this field full time, the debate over whether it’s creating or eliminating jobs, and how soon regular people will start to see these programs in their everyday lives. Alexandr Wang: https://www.instagram.com/alexanddeer/ ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10%off your first month. Modiphy: Get 50% off the last website you’ll ever need at https://modiphy.com/THEO ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Theo Von?

  You ever realize that you spent your entire morning thinking about lunch? It's 9 a.m. and somehow I'm already in negotiations with myself about how I'm gonna spend $20 on a sandwich at noon. And then I eat it, or you eat it, or somebody eats it, and then an hour later, you're just standing in the kitchen worrying about what you'll do for dinner. And that's one reason why I've been into Huell. The Black Edition Powder is a complete meal you have instead of food, not a shake on top of food. Their powder starts at less than $3 per meal, has 40 grams of protein, and mixes with water or milk in about 30 seconds. I like Huell's shakes because they're clean and it's quick.

• 0:41Theo Von?

  I just want to make sure I have everything I need to keep going the way I want to keep going in a healthy manner. So with Huell, basically, lunch went from a daily logistical problem to a thing I can solve in about 30 seconds. Make healthy eating simple. New customers get an exclusive offer of 15% off online with my code WEEKEND at huell.com/weekend. That's H-U-E-L dot com slash weekend. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show. I want to let you know we've restocked all your favorites on the merch site. Everything is in stock.

• 1:20Theo Von?

  You can show up theovonstore.com and thank you so much for the support. I have some new tour dates to tell you about. I'll be in Chicago, Illinois on April 24th at the Wintrust Arena, Fort Wayne, Indiana on April 26th at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, and Miami, Florida on May 10th at the Casaya Center. Get your tickets early, starting Wednesday, February 19th at 10 a.m. with pre-sale code RATKING. We also have tickets remaining in East Lansing, Victoria, B.C. in the Canada College Station,

• 2:01Theo Von?

  Belton, Texas, Oxford, Mississippi, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Winnipeg in the Canada, and Calgary in the Canada. All tickets at theovon.com/TOUR.

• 2:17Theo Von?

  Today's guest is from Los Alamos, New Mexico. He's a leader in the world of business and technology. He's an entrepreneur. He started Scale AI, a company recently valued at $14 billion. He started it when he was only 19 and at 24, he became the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. We talk about his company, the future of AI and the role it plays in our human existence. This was super educational for me. I hope it is for you. I'm grateful for his time. Today's guest is Mr. Alexander Wang.

• 3:10Theo Von?

  Alexander Wang, man, thanks for hanging out, bro.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 3:13Theo Von?

  Yeah, good to see you, dude.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Last time was at the inauguration.

• 3:17Theo Von?

  Yeah, what'd you think of that? Like, what were your thoughts after you left? Because you and I ended up, we like left out of there and then went and got lunch together, which is kind of crazy.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  It was, uh, there was a lot going on. Yeah, it was a, were you there the whole weekend?

• 3:29Theo Von?

  No, I just got there, uh, the day, the morning of the inauguration. Were you there the whole weekend?

• 3:34Speaker 01

  I was there the whole weekend. Yeah, no, I mean, I think at least for what we do, like for AI, the, uh, the new administration is really excited about it. And wants to make sure that we, we get it right as a country. So, um, that was all great, but it was kind of a crazy, the whole like event, like everything was pretty crazy. I don't know, what'd you think?

• 3:51Theo Von?

  I mean, when I saw Conor McGregor show up, that's when I was like, shit is, where are we? It felt, that's what like the most bizarre, I mean, you were there, Sam Altman was there. I was just like, it was like, whoa, what happened here? Um, and part of that's because Alex Breuschowitz, you know?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Totally, yeah.

• 4:09Theo Von?

  I mean, it's all because of him that we all went, but just the fact that he would bring these people together, it kind of makes you question.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Crossover. It's like, uh, it's like in, in those like TV shows when you have those crossover episodes.

• 4:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  That's kind of what it felt like.

• 4:20Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, when like the Harlem Globetrotters and it would be like them versus like, um, the Care Bears or whatever would show up.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 4:28Theo Von?

  Yeah, this seems. Um, yeah, some cross pollination. Um, yeah. What'd you think when Connor showed up? Was that strange to see him? Like, was there somebody you thought that was strange, like, unique to see there for you?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Uh, well, yeah, I mean, you, Connor, like, the, the, the Pauls, I don't know, the whole, the whole thing was pretty, uh, pretty crazy. I see Sam all the time and I see, uh, I see some of the tech people all the time. I mean, it was funny crossover and it was obviously like, uh, so many people flew in to be able to go to like the outdoor inauguration.

• 4:58Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  And so, I mean, there were so many people in the city, uh, we ran into them, obviously, but like, there were so many people in DC, uh, who were just around for the inauguration. So it was a...

• 5:07Theo Von?

  Yeah, I didn't even think about that. All, there was a couple hundred thousand people probably that just got kind of displaced in a way. And suddenly they're just in bars or whatever, just like buying, like, there was like, people I saw walking, just adult onesies and shit that said Trump or on the, that's crazy shit.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:23Theo Von?

  Um, yeah, thanks for coming in, man. I'm excited to learn about AI. I know that that's a world that you're in. You're in the tech universe. Um, and you, you're from New Mexico, right?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:33Theo Von?

  And so when you grew up there, did you have like a strong sense of like science and technology? Was that like part of your world? Like, did your parents like lead you into that? Like, what was just some of your youth like there?

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, uh, both my parents are physicists and there's a...

• 5:48Theo Von?

  Oh, damn.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  I grew up in this town called Los Alamos where there's a, there's a, there's a national lab there. Um, did you watch Oppenheimer?

• 5:56Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the, so all the New Mexico shots in Oppenheimer, that's exactly where I grew up.

• 6:01Theo Von?

  Oh, damn.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  So it was like originally where all the scientists came together and, and did all the work with the atomic bomb. And there's still this huge lab that's basically the, everybody I knew, effectively, like their parents worked at the lab or were somehow affiliated with the lab.

• 6:16Theo Von?

  It's like Nukville over there, huh?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Nukville, yeah.

• 6:18Theo Von?

  Is that, was it scary like that?

• 6:20Speaker 01

  It was, you know, it, uh...

• 6:22Theo Von?

  At a level of mystery? Like, is your prom like Last Night Under the Stars or something like?

• 6:27Speaker 01

  There's a, there's this one museum. Well, the funny thing is like, first you hear, you hear this, you learn the story of the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project, like basically every year growing up. Because there's always like a day or a few days where, you know, there's a substitute teacher and they just, they just play the videos. So you're just like-

• 6:45Theo Von?

  Yeah, an alcoholic or something.

• 6:49Theo Von?

  A recreational user would use that term. That's crazy that that just like every year you guys have like,

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:56Theo Von?

  Just like blast it Thursdays or whatever and it's just-

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're just learning, you're learning again about the Manhattan Project and then there's a little, there's a little museum in town, uh, which is like you walk through and there's like a, a life-size replica of the nukes. Um, so it's, it's pretty wild. Yeah.

• 7:14Theo Von?

  And where did they drop the atomic bombs on? They dropped them on Asia, right? Hiroshima?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  They, yeah, they dropped them, uh, on, uh, in, in Japan. Yeah. Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

• 7:24Theo Von?

  Is it, is it crazy being like semi Asian, part Asian?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, yeah. My, uh, my parents are Chinese.

• 7:31Theo Von?

  Oh, nice, man. Is it crazy being Asian and then having that hap- happen to Asian people with the bomb? Like, is that a weird thing there or it's nothing?

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I don't think so. I mean, I think the thing is like, you know, I, uh, so there weren't, I didn't grow up with very many Asians, uh, cause the, in that town, it was, um, you know, it's, it was in New Mexico. There's very few Asians in New Mexico. So I was one of the only Asian kids in my class growing up. And so, um, I didn't think that much about it, honestly. But then, like, uh, but it is super weird. You know, you grow up and you learn about this very advanced technology that had this like, really, really big impact on the world. And I think that shaped-

• 8:12Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's like the scientific John Jones over there, really. He's New Mexican, isn't he?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  He's, he lives in Albuquerque. Yeah.

• 8:17Theo Von?

  Oh, he does?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  I think he does. Yeah.

• 8:18Theo Von?

  Oh, sweet, man.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:19Theo Von?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. That, so you, so you're there, there's this, there's this energy always there of this creation. And so probably the possibility of creation maybe was always in the air. I'm just wondering like, how did you get formed? Kind of, you know? Like, what's your origin story, kind of?

• 8:33Speaker 01

  It was super scientific, cause, cause you know, there was always these- There were all these presentations around what were the new kinds of science that were going on at the lab. So there's all these chemistry experiments and these different like earth science experiments and physics experiments. And my mom studied like plasma and like how plasma, you know, worked inside of stars and stuff like that. So it was just the wildest stuff. And you would talk to people's parents, people, like I would talk to my classmates or I'd talk to their parents about what they're working on is always some crazy science thing. So that was, that was really cool. Cause, cause everybody in that town basically is, they're all working on some kind of crazy scientific thing.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  And so you kind of, I mean, I feel like I grew up feeling like, you know, anything was possible in that way, like.

• 9:25Theo Von?

  Yeah. Cause the rest of us in other communities shitty communities or whatever, we're just making that volcano or whatever, you know what I'm saying? We're doing like grassroots level bullshit, you know? Dang, that's gotta be wild. So every, you see somebody just sneaking behind an alley and buying a bit of uranium and shit like that in your neighborhood. That's gotta be kind of unique.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  I remember there was someone from our town who did, uh, who did a science fair project called, um, it's called like great balls of plasma. And for the science, literally for the science fair, this was in like high school, for the science fair, they made like huge balls of plasma in their garage. And I was like, what the hell? This is, we're all just doing this in, in high school.

• 10:09Theo Von?

  Damn. So did you feel competitive or did you just feel like hyper capable? Like, did you feel like kind of advanced just in your studies, like when you were young, like did you, in class, you're like, oh, some of this stuff's kind of coming easy to me?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  I ended up, what, what I did is, um, there was a, I ended up getting really competitive about math in particular. And so, uh, so my sport was math, which is kind of crazy that.

• 10:35Theo Von?

  Algebrazy, son. I know, I feel you.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Um, and it was because when I was in middle school, when I was in sixth grade, there was this one math competition where if you, if you got top four in the. State, state of New Mexico, then you would get an all expense paid trip to Disney World. And, uh, and I remember as a sixth grader, like that was the most motivating thing I could possibly imagine was like an all expense paid trip to Disney World.

• 11:01Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Um, and then, uh,

• 11:04Theo Von?

  Did you win it?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  I got, I won it. I got fourth place, so I snuck in there.

• 11:07Theo Von?

  Qualifier.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Uh, snuck in. I, uh, and then I went to, and then we went to Florida to Disney World. And I, uh, I hadn't traveled, like I didn't travel around too much growing up. Like I mostly was in New Mexico and we did some road trips around the Southwest. So I remember getting to Florida and it was extremely humid. It was like, I'd never felt what humidity felt like when I landed in Florida. I was like, oh, this feels bad. And then I,

• 11:34Theo Von?

  Yeah, it definitely does. Yeah. It's funny cause I grew up in humid, dude. Like you would like, you try to shake somebody's hand, you couldn't even land it because it was just not enough viscose, just too much lube in a handshake. You'd sit there for 10 minutes trying to land a handshake, you know? Everybody was always dripping, you know, all the time. People, you always thought they were scared or something. They were kind of geeked up off a gas station dope or something, but people were just, it was humid. Yeah. You get really humid over there.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  So then I became, so then I became a mathlete. Uh, that was like a big part of my identity was being a mathlete and I would,

• 12:06Theo Von?

  And you have to wear a vest? Like, what do you guys do? Is there an, is there a uniform for that or?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Well, you, you need a, you, you have a calculator.

• 12:14Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  So everyone had their favorite calculator.

• 12:16Theo Von?

  Okay. You got that Draco on you, baby. I feel you keep strapped. You stay strapped at that thing.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  And then, uh, but, uh, but outside of that, not really. I mean, like everyone had their favorite, like his pencil, you know, your pencil, your calculator. That was your gear. And, uh, but yeah, no, I, I was, I was like a, a nationally ranked mathlete for, uh, for middle school, high school. That was my, that was my jam. Yeah.

• 12:40Theo Von?

  And is it, what's that math circle like? Is there, wow, that's crazy, dude. So you go to, what are there competitions you go to with that?

• 12:49Speaker 01

  There's competitions. Yeah. There's like, there's like state level competitions. There's national level competitions. There's like these summer camps. Math camp. I went to math camp a bunch of times. Where you where you convene with like minded mathletes.

• 13:04Theo Von?

  Wow, fucking wizards in the park. Couple dudes fucking fighting over a common denominator in the lobby. That's crazy, bro.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  But then you're but just like any other sport, like you're like it's competitive, you know, you gotta like, you gotta win and and so so you're chummy with everyone, but you're also like, we're like, who's gonna win, you know?

• 13:24Theo Von?

  Yeah, no, dude, competitions amazing, man. That's one thing is too, that's so nice. I think about when you're young is like if you're involved in a sport or a group or whatever it was. Just to just that chance to be competitive, you know? What are what were like some of the competitions at the math thing like what's a what's a math competition like when you get there?

• 13:42Speaker 01

  So you, uh, the ones in the middle school, middle school were actually more fun because there's like there's almost like a jeopardy style buzzer competition and stuff like that. But uh, but in high school, once you get to high school, it's just, uh, you just take a test. And you're just, it's like the the biggest one in America is called the USMO.

• 14:01Theo Von?

  Bring it up.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  USAMO. And uh, and it's like, you people all around the country take this test. And there's a

• 14:14Theo Von?

  United States of American Mathematical Olympiad.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 14:18Theo Von?

  Okay, a participant must be the US citizen or illegal resident US. Okay, okay, go on.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  And then you, uh, and then it's a nine hour test. It's split over two days. It's nine hours. You it's four and a half hours and it's nine hours and you have six problems. So it's kind of nerve wracking and you get in there, you have four and a half hours the first day, four and a half hours the second day.

• 14:41Theo Von?

  Can you cheat in between the days? Can you just go home and?

• 14:43Speaker 01

  No, you because you only get three questions the first day and then you only get three questions the next day. I remember the first time I took it, I was in, I think I was, uh, I was in eighth grade, first time I took it. And I like, I was like so nervous and I just, I like brought a thermos full of coffee and I drank so much coffee. That like those four and a half hours felt like, like Year. It was like, I was so jittery the whole time. It was, uh, it was crazy.

• 15:11Theo Von?

  Damn, you out there rattling, brother. Oh, integers make me rattle, brother. I feel you on that. Dude, so that's pretty, so, so, so you're competitive. And so you get out of there and you're obviously, I guess, admired in the world of math, probably, or that's, that's like a thing that like, uh, that you can point that, that's like a pen that you, a feather in your cap. So that, that helps you get into, um, MIT, right?

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yep, yep. So then, uh, yeah, in MIT, on the MIT admissions, they ask for your like competitive math scores. So if you're, so.

• 15:44Theo Von?

  So you knew a lot of kids going there probably because it was.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Tons of kids. Yeah, yeah. Tons of kids. It was like a reunion. It was like math camp reunion.

• 15:50Theo Von?

  Damn, cuz I was wondering where all y'all were at, dude, because we were doing some other shit. You know what I'm saying? My, yeah, we were not, God, that's where all the smart kids were. That's fascinating, man.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  And so then, uh, yeah, I was at MIT and then, uh, MIT is like a really intense school because they, you know, the classes, they don't fuck around with. They just really like, they load you up with tons of work. And most of the time you have, you, you like, they load you up with like huge amounts of work and they, you know, you, you, uh, you don't really know what's going on initially. And so you're just kind of like, you're just trying to make it through. But, uh, you know, there's this motto that, uh, that MIT has called, uh, IHTFP, which, uh, among the students stands for, I hate this fucking place.

• 16:35Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. It's heavy, huh?

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then, but then the school, when you go, they tell you, oh, it stands for, um, I've truly found paradise. So.

• 16:42Theo Von?

  Oh, so a couple differences of opinion.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:46Theo Von?

  Yeah, damn. So it's, so it's really severe there. There's a lot of work. They load you down out of the gate?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  You do, you do a lot of work, uh, but it's, it's kind of awesome. I mean, cuz, cuz I think the students really band together. Like you, like instead of, like, I think, uh, instead of it being competitive, really, MIT is much more about like, everybody kind of like coming together, working on problems together, working on homework together and just kind of like making it through together.

• 17:12Theo Von?

  What's that social life like there? Like, are you dating? You going to parties? What's that like for you at that time?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  It's a bunch of parties. Because people like MIT, there's a lot of people who like tinkering with gadgets. So like tinkering with like, you know, lights and big speakers and DJ sets and all this stuff. So actually, the parties are pretty good because they're like the production value is high. The production quality is high.

• 17:34Theo Von?

  Damn. And then what about when the science kids come through? The lab dogs? Are they bringing, are people making like unique drugs? Was there like designer drugs that are being created by actual people? Like just because, you know what I'm saying? Like my friends in college, none of us would know how to do that. But there may be somebody at a smart, at a more prestigious school that would know how. Was that a thing even? Or is that just?

• 17:57Speaker 01

  There's one, there was one part of the campus called East Campus. Um, where it was like, it was more fringe. And so there was like, at one point in the school year, they would, in their courtyard, they would build a gigantic catapult, like a huge catapult.

• 18:11Theo Von?

  Like a trebuchet?

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Like a trebuchet, yeah. What's the difference? I don't know what the difference.

• 18:16Theo Von?

  Yeah, let's get the difference there because people need to know this anyway. People have for decades now, people have been.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  A trebuchet has a like a rope attached to the end of it that flings it where a catapult just launches it.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  No, it was a catapult then.

• 18:28Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Like a big, because there's a big, there was a big like, like ice cream scooper.

• 18:32Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Looking thing that would like, that would fling it.

• 18:35Theo Von?

  And what are they just flinging Adderall on the rest of the campus?

• 18:37Speaker 01

  They would fling stuff into the river, which I don't think, now that I'm thinking about it, I feel like, I don't know what the, yeah, no, these giant, this giant like catapult things. Yeah.

• 18:48Theo Von?

  And so this was like a event that would go on and people would kind of rave there? What are you saying?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, they would do this, they would do other things. They were like, they were into, they would like build a lot of stuff over there. Um, and there would be.

• 19:00Theo Von?

  Like people that ended up at Burning Man later on.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, that was the burning, that was core Burning Man. Like there was a, there was a satanic ritual floor.

• 19:07Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a lot of, a lot of, like it's fringe. Uh, cool, it's cool.

• 19:11Theo Von?

  Right.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Um, but, uh, but there, yeah, so there's all these parties. We, we bragged at MIT that, uh, you know, people from all the neighboring schools, because Boston is a huge college town, like tons of, tons of.

• 19:22Theo Von?

  Boston's an amazing city.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, but no, MIT was fun. But I was only there, I was at MIT for one year.

• 19:27Theo Von?

  Right, and you dropped out, is that safe to say?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:29Theo Von?

  Okay, you dropped out and then you. So you got into AI, into the AI world. Is that kind of a safe bridge to say?

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:36Theo Von?

  Okay. Is there, and I want to ask this because I know Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college. You dropped out of college. Both you guys have had success in tech and kind of, you know, forward thinking that sort of world. Is there something in college that you felt like didn't nurture you? Or did you just feel like this isn't the place for me? Do you feel like college doesn't nurture a certain type of thinker? Or was it just a personal choice?

• 20:05Speaker 01

  I think for me, it was like, I was just feeling really impatient. And I don't really know why really, but I remember like, I remember I was in school the first year. I, it was, it was really fun and, and I really enjoyed it. But then I remember, you know, this, in the year when I was at MIT was one of the first like, it was like one of the early big moments in AI. Because it was, I don't even remember this, but there was an AI that beat the world champion at Go. This was in 2015, when I was in college.

• 20:42Theo Von?

  At Go, and that was a game?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, Go, it's like, it's like a big checkerboard with like white and black stones. It's like, and it was, yeah, this, this game, AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol.

• 20:57Theo Von?

  So AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol, also known as the DeepMind challenge match, was a five game Go match between top Go player Lee Sedol and AlphaGo, a computer Go program developed by DeepMind, played in Seoul, South Korea, between 9th and 15th of March 2016.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  That was confusing how that's written.

• 21:15Theo Von?

  It is very confusing, huh? You'd think that we got a, AlphaGo won all but the fourth game. All games were won by resignation. The match has been compared with the historic chess match between Deep Blue and Garry Kasparov. Huh. The winner of the match was slated to win $1 million since AlphaGo won. Google DeepMind stated that the prize will be donated to charities, including UNICEF and USAID. That's just a joke.

• 21:41Theo Von?

  But Lee received a hundred fifty thousand dollars for playing. So this was a big moment because this had never kind of happened before?

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Never happened, yeah. And it was it was a big moment for for AI. It was like, oh, wow, this stuff is like, it's really happening. And so then this happened in March, and I guess, yeah, I dropped out. Started my company in May. So I guess two months after this, I was I was, uh, yeah, that's what the game looks like.

• 22:07Theo Von?

  Oh, I've I've played this game before.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  It's honestly, it's a really, uh, like, I'm not very good at the game.

• 22:14Theo Von?

  It's a little more fun than playing chess unless you're like, you know, in like Renaissance Fair board games or whatever.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:20Theo Von?

  Um, okay, so now we got you. You're loose, dude. You're out of the school. And you're in the world. You see, did that match? Did realizing that kind of like spurn you to want to leave school? Or did was that just something that happened around the same time?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  It it kind of did. Basically, it was it was I remember feeling like, oh, wow, AI, it's happening. And this is back in twenty sixteen, so like eight, eight, nine years ago.

• 22:44Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  And then I felt like I had to, you know, basically that that inspired me to start my company.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  And I moved, I basically went straight from, I remember this, I was I flew straight from Boston to San Francisco and then started the company, basically.

• 23:03Theo Von?

  And that's Scale AI?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Scale AI.

• 23:04Theo Von?

  Okay. And so did you, had you been following AI? Like, what are your kind of, are you just like, knew like, this is where it's going? Like, you just felt there was something, an instinct that you trusted or like, because that's a big thing to do.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  I was stuck. So I took all the AI classes at MIT.

• 23:22Theo Von?

  Okay, so you already learning a lot about it?

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Yep. And then there was one class where you had to, like, on all the classes, you had to do side projects or final projects of some kind. And in one of them, I wanted to build a, like, a camera inside my refrigerator that would tell me when my roommates were stealing my food.

• 23:40Theo Von?

  Wang, boy, catching them. Wang, boy.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  And uh, but then, so I worked on that and then it was, there was one moment where, where uh, I was like, there was like, there was a moment that clicked where I was trying to build this thing and then there was one step that was like too easy. I was like, whoa, that just worked right there. And then that happened and then the, the go match happened and I was like, this, this stuff is happening. And so I-

• 24:07Theo Von?

  Did you ever market those refrigerators? Did you ever actually create that?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  I didn't market them, no.

• 24:11Theo Von?

  Dude, I could totally see that, bro. There's a refrigerator, every dorm has it where there's a camera built in and you just get, you're in, you get a notification on your phone, you know? You're like, damn, Adnons got my hummus, you know? But you got video of them right there, dude. That's a great idea. I love that.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  That was, uh, that was, that was college me. Yeah.

• 24:31Theo Von?

  Okay, so Alexander Wang, he's free in the world now. He's headed to San Francisco. He's AI'd up. He feels the energy. He's motivated by some of the classes he took. Um, he's motivated by seeing that AI is starting to actually overtake humans, right? Or be able to compete with the actual human thinking with the chess match.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would, the way I would think about it, or the way I thought about the time was like, this is, this is becoming, um, I, you know, people have been talking about AI for decades. Like it's kind of been, always been one of these things that, um, people have, have said, oh, it's gonna happen, but it never really was happening and it felt like it was, you know, it was really about to happen.

• 25:08Theo Von?

  About artificial intelligence. Yeah.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:10Theo Von?

  Yeah, cuz I've always heard about artificial intelligence. That's what I have. So I've always been like, um-

• 25:16Speaker 01

  No, you have, you are, you have real intelligence, not artificial, real intelligence.

• 25:19Theo Von?

  I know, I mean, so I think it's a, it's probably a mix, but I see what you're saying, you know? I do, you know what I thought of the other day? It was like, what if they had like a Mexican version and it was like, AI?

• 25:31Theo Von?

  I don't know, that's a good, that's a good joke, but thank you. It's a nice laugh.

• 25:37Theo Von?

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• 25:41Theo Von?

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• 27:48Theo Von?

  What is AI?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so AI is all about, you know, basically programming computers to be able to start thinking like humans. So, you know, traditional computer programming, you know, it's pretty, it's pretty bare bones. It's not very smart. And so AI is all about, can you have, can you build algorithms that start to be able to think like people? And, and replicate some of the, like, our brains are these incredible, incredible things, you know? And that's, that's evolution. That's just biology that created our brains. And so it's all about how can we, how can we build something similar to that or replicate it? Using, using computers and machines.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  And so the whole, you know, the, the whole modern AI era really started around an area called computer vision. But it was like, how can we first get computers to see like, like humans do? So one of the very first, so, you know, one of the very first AI projects was this thing called ImageNet. ImageNet and later AlexNet. And it was basically, can you get computer programs to like, given a photo to tell you what's in that photo?

• 29:06Theo Von?

  I see, so just like a human would, like if you showed them this. Then you're starting to train them to have a perspective?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, train them to, well, actually originally like, you could, like, let's say you took a photo of this, of this bottle. A machine wouldn't even be able to tell you what's in the photo. It would just know what the pixels were, but it wouldn't be able to tell you like, oh, there's a bottle in that, in that photo. So the, you know, one of the first AI breakthroughs was when YouTube built an algorithm that could tell when there were cats in their videos. And that was like this, you know, in like 2012 or 2011, this was like this mind blowing breakthrough. That you could like, figure out, you could like, use an algorithm to figure out when there was a cat inside a, inside a video. And so AI, it started pretty simply with just how do we replicate, you know, vision?

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Like, how do you replicate like our, basically the fact that our eyes and our brains can like process all this imagery coming in? And that really led to, I think, one of the first major use cases of AI, which is self-driving cars. So this was, when I started the company in 2016, self-driving cars were all the rage. Because, you know, it was, you know, there were all these like skunkworks projects.

• 30:22Theo Von?

  When you started Scale AI, you mean?

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I started Scale AI.

• 30:25Theo Von?

  So when you kind of got into AI.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 30:27Theo Von?

  At that time, self-driving cars are the most popular things.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yep. That was all the rage. And so it was, it was all about, can, you know, can we start building algorithms that can drive a car like a human would and do it safely? And do it, you know, more efficiently. And that way, instead of, that was, that was one of the first major areas.

• 30:47Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  And then, now, you know, the whole, the whole industry has moved so fast, but then all of a sudden we got ChatGPT and we got, you know, more advanced stuff more recently that, that is able to talk like a human or sort of think like a human. And so it's really come up pretty far recently, but all of it is about how do you, you build algorithms? How to use machines to be able to think like a person?

• 31:10Theo Von?

  Okay. And is it a pro, it's like, say if I opened a door, like, oh, we keep the AI in there. Is it a computer? Is it a program? Is it a hard drive? Like, what, like, what is that?

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. So there's two parts. There's two parts to it. So the first part is you need really advanced chips. So you need like, uh, like these, they're called GPUs or sometimes called TPUs or, you know, there's a lot of different words for it. But you need like the most advanced computer chips in the world.

• 31:43Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  And they.

• 31:43Theo Von?

  How big is each one? Do you know?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Like.

• 31:46Theo Von?

  Or can you measure it like that?

• 31:48Speaker 01

  They, I mean, the biggest ones are actually like, the whole chips are like, you know, pretty big. But they, they're like a, they're like a, like a wafer kind of thing. But then you, um, you put a lot of them all together.

• 31:59Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  So these, uh, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, these like, uh, these chips and the, the biggest ones are, are, yeah, exactly.

• 32:09Theo Von?

  That's a little one.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  That's a little one. There's really big ones.

• 32:12Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Um.

• 32:13Theo Von?

  But these are the, so this is the, these are the brain cells of it.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yep. These are, these are the brains behind it. Yeah. So then, um, yeah, exactly. These are some, those are some big ones. So then.

• 32:24Theo Von?

  So you have to have a lot of these chips.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  So you need a ton of these chips and that's, that's kind of the, the like, uh, that's the physical presence. And then, um, and then by the way, they take a huge amount of energy. They're really, uh, they, cause they have, you have to do a lot of, you know, calculations and there's a lot of math that has to happen on them. And so, um, and you have, you have giant, basically data centers, buildings full of like tons and tons of those chips, just in giant rows.

• 32:51Theo Von?

  Like how big are we talking warehouses?

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. The biggest one, I mean, like, um, like Elon's data center, Colossus is like, uh, I mean, it's probably more than a million, it's definitely more than a million square feet. I mean, it's like just huge.

• 33:04Theo Von?

  Really?

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Look up Colossus.

• 33:06Theo Von?

  I've never known this.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah. That, that, uh, you see that building with the sunset?

• 33:13Theo Von?

  Second row?

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. There you go. Or, uh, the one to the left.

• 33:17Theo Von?

  Oh, no.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, that one. Yeah. Look, it's like a huge ass building.

• 33:21Theo Von?

  What?

• 33:22Speaker 01

  It's huge and all of that's just filled with chips. Um.

• 33:26Theo Von?

  Have you ever been in there?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I haven't been in that one, but I've, I've been in some of these and it's just.

• 33:30Theo Von?

  And this is what it looks like inside?

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically. Yeah. So it's just rows and rows of chips. So.

• 33:35Theo Von?

  No plants or anything?

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no plants, no plants. It gets hot in there.

• 33:39Theo Von?

  I bet.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Um, so the first part is just the, the, that's the physical presence. And then the second part are the algorithms. So then you have like on top of those chips, you have, you have software that, that's running and the, the algorithms are just all, are like what you actually are telling, what's the math that you're telling to happen on the chips? And those algorithms are, you know, some of the, you know, most complicated algorithms that humans have ever come up with. And that's kind of the, that's kind of the software part or that's kind of the, that's the part that like. You know, exists on the internet or you can download or whatnot. And then it has to be run on these like huge warehouses of giant of giant ships.

• 34:21Theo Von?

  Okay. So when someone goes to like Scale AI or Chat GPT, these are all AI interfaces or what are they? They're.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so, um, yeah, like Chat GPT is a, is a way to be able to, uh, talk to, basically you can talk to the algorithm.

• 34:39Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  So you can start interacting directly with the algorithm. You can see how the algorithm is thinking.

• 34:45Theo Von?

  So you could say to this, um, can you describe the weather today?

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 34:49Theo Von?

  And if you said that to five different AI company or AI companies, basically.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Or AI algorithms, different, different AI systems. Yeah.

• 34:58Theo Von?

  So if you said that's five different AI systems, you might get a little bit of a varied answer?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Little bit. Yeah.

• 35:03Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  You'll get, you'll get, because they all are trying to have their own style and have their own vibe to it.

• 35:07Theo Von?

  Interesting.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  And then what we do, what, what Scale AI is all about is we've kind of built the, uh, almost like the Uber of AI.

• 35:15Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  So a lot of what we're trying to do is how do we, so how do we help produce data that is improving these algorithms? And just like how Uber, there's.

• 35:25Theo Von?

  Okay. You're losing me there a little.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:27Theo Von?

  It's okay. But, uh, if I slow down, if I, if you're losing me, uh, but so explain that to me a little bit clearer for me.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so, okay. So with these algorithms, um, one key ingredient for these algorithms is data. So.

• 35:42Theo Von?

  Okay. So you have the chips and everything that are, that are storing all the information.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:46Theo Von?

  They're storing the data.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:47Theo Von?

  And then you have the algorithms that are helping mediate between the user and the data?

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So basically you kind of have, yeah, you have three, you have three key pieces.

• 35:57Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  So you have the, uh, you have the computational power of the chips, you have the chips. You have the data, which is like just tons and tons of data that that's where the algorithms are learning the patterns from.

• 36:10Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  So these algorithms, they aren't just like, they don't just learn to talk randomly. They learn it from learning to talk from how humans talk. Right?

• 36:17Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  So you need tons and tons of data. And then you have the algorithms which, uh, learn from all that data. And then they run on top of the chips.

• 36:26Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Um, so then.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  One of the big challenges in the industry is, okay, how are you going to produce all this data? And so, um, uh,

• 36:36Theo Von?

  Like, how are you going to get data for your

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:39Theo Von?

  system? Like, how do you farm the best data?

• 36:42Speaker 01

  How do, exactly. How do you build, how do you build all that data? And how do you do that, um, in the most effective way? How do you build new data?

• 36:49Theo Von?

  And clean data, because what if you get a bunch of data in there that's just a bunch of advertisements and bullshit? Will that affect the output?

• 36:55Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. Yeah, that definitely affects the output. So this whole data, so data is, is, you know, some people say like data is the new oil or data is new gold. Like data is really, really valuable because it's, it's how the algorithms are learning everything that they're learning. Like any, anything that the algorithms know or learn or say or do, all that has to come from the data that goes into it.

• 37:18Theo Von?

  Okay, so, so if I ask, if I ask a system, an AI system a question or ask it to help me with something, help me to, to design something or to curate an idea, it's going to use the data that it has within it.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:32Theo Von?

  To respond to me and help me, uh, and help, give me an answer that I can use. And it's only, and the data it has in it is only based upon the data that, um, is put into it.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then, so yeah, it's kind of, um, 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? So the, the angle that we took at scale was to kind of, um, turn this into an opportunity for people. So, um, we're, you know, we're kind of like the Uber for AI. So just like how Uber, you have, you know, riders and drivers. For us, we have, uh, you know, we have the AI systems, you know, the algorithms that need data. And then we have, um, a community of people, a network of people who help produce the data that go into the system. They get paid to do that.

• 38:27Theo Von?

  Ah, so they're almost data farming, like creating good data?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Creating good data, exactly. So, and it's, and it's huge. It's like, uh, so we do this through, um, our platform called Outlier.

• 38:39Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  And, uh, uh, Outlier, last year, uh, people, contributors, we call them, contributors on Outlier, earned about $500 million total across everybody. Um, in the U.S., that's across 9,000 different towns. Um, and, uh,

• 38:57Theo Von?

  So it create a lot of jobs for you?

• 38:58Speaker 01

  A lot of jobs.

• 38:59Theo Von?

  Okay, and so what would, um, okay, so Scale was your company?

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Scale AI.

• 39:03Theo Von?

  It's an AI system.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:05Theo Von?

  Is that right?

• 39:05Speaker 01

  So we, uh, yeah, I mean, the, yeah, Scale AI is an AI system.

• 39:09Theo Von?

  Okay, and then Outlier?

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:12Theo Von?

  Is a separate company that's, works with it?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:15Theo Von?

  And that is where you are, um, hiring people?

• 39:21Speaker 01

  We, yeah, we, we basically,

• 39:23Theo Von?

  To pull in data?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we build this platform that anybody, you know, a lot of people, frankly, all around the world, but Americans too, can log on and, uh, and help build data that goes into the algorithms and get paid to do so.

• 39:40Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:41Theo Von?

  So how, and, and how does a user do that? Like, what is an example of somebody who's helping build data for an AI database?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  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. Um, and, uh, take care of, of people who are sick or, you know, have issues and whatnot. And, uh, so you, you could log on to 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. Like the algorithm says, "Oh, just, you know, hang out and, and, you know, it'll, 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.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  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,

• 40:51Theo Von?

  Anything, everything.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Everything, exactly. So,

• 40:54Theo Von?

  And so people get paid for that?

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they get paid.

• 40:57Theo Von?

  And how do you know if their information is valuable or not?

• 41:00Speaker 01

  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, that check this stuff. But, uh, but for the most part, it's, it's like, it's really broad. Like we want experts in anything.

• 41:28Theo Von?

  Everything. Shellfish, train tracks, whatever.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:31Theo Von?

  Gelatin. Everything. Childhood, death or whatever.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 41:36Theo Von?

  Stars, galaxies, whatever.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:38Theo Von?

  Animals, big animals. Yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:41Theo Von?

  Damn.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  So.

• 41:42Theo Von?

  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.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 42:08Theo Von?

  That make sense or not?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 42:21Theo Von?

  Wow. So is there almost a, a race for information right now in a weird way or no? Is that not it?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  There, a little bit. Yeah. I think that there's a, well, there's a race for.

• 42:30Theo Von?

  Like, how are different AI systems competing against each other? And sorry to interrupt you.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  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 is the most advanced chips? Who is the, the biggest buildings of chips? Like who is the most chips, um, that they're utilizing? Uh, data. So the kind of body of water, whose body of water is better, cleaner, you know, uh, 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, um, make the AI learn better off of the data that it has?

• 43:18Theo Von?

  Wow. God, I'm in the future right now. That's so wild. Man, it's just, it's so crazy. And 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 people you associate. Cause a lot of times when people mention AI, there's a little bit of fear, it seems like from people.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:40Theo Von?

  There's fear that it's going to take jobs, there's fear that it's going to take over. The, 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? And not a lack of knowledge because you didn't want to know just because you don't know.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:01Theo Von?

  Or that you're dumb, but just because you don't know.

• 44:05Theo Von?

  What are, what are positive things that we're going to see with AI, right? I want to start there.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. 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, and genuinely, we, we're part of the problem in making it seem scary. Right? Uh, but you know, one thing, for example, is like, I think AI is actually going to create a ton of jobs. Um, and that story is not told enough, but you know, these jobs that we're producing are 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.

• 44:43Theo Von?

  Because you have to have new data.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  You have to have new data.

• 44:45Theo Von?

  And the only place you can get new data is from people will, will at a certain point with the system be able to create. It can probably matriculate data or matriculate, is that with birthing or what is that?

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just moves through like.

• 44:58Theo Von?

  Okay. It can probably like quantify or in a, and, and give you answers, but it can, AI create new data?

• 45:07Speaker 01

  No. So I think, well, it can do a little bit of that. So it can, AI can help itself create its own data. Um, and, and help itself a little bit, but ultimately most of the progress is going to come from, you know, people.

• 45:21Theo Von?

  Right.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Were able to help really the model get better and smarter and more capable at all these, all these different areas.

• 45:26Theo Von?

  Ah, 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 gonna continue to learn, I would assume that we would be able to help continue to help it learn.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the world's gonna keep changing and we're gonna need to be able to keep teaching the the algorithms, keep teaching the models about how the world's changing. So, 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 gonna 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, sort of be a part of the the technology, not just sort of disenfranchised by it.

• 46:17Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  So.

• 46:18Theo Von?

  Like, yeah, so 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 gonna be able to add more data, right?

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:27Theo Von?

  And add nuances to data.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:29Theo Von?

  Right? And and probably humanize data a little bit.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 46:34Theo Von?

  And then you're also gonna have what?

• 46:38Speaker 01

  I think you're gonna have a lot of, a lot of jobs around, you know, as AI starts doing all these little things throughout the world. Who's gonna keep watch of those AI? And who's gonna make sure that those AI are aren't doing something that we don't want them to do? So almost like managing the AIs and and keeping watch over all the AI systems. That's gonna be another thing that we're gonna have to do. And then, and then it's.

• 47:05Theo Von?

  So somebody to kind of guide the river a little bit.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:08Theo Von?

  At certain point, guide the stream, stay in there, watch, make sure that answers are correct, make sure the information is honest.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, like, like I think, for example, you know, we're not gonna just have AIs going around and, you know.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  You know, buying stuff and doing crazy things and like, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna keep it controlled, right? Like as a society, I think we're gonna keep it controlled as a technology. And I think there's gonna 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.

• 47:45Theo Von?

  Right, so we wanna be, so you're gonna need managers, you're gonna need facilitators.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:49Theo Von?

  What are things that AI will alleviate? Like, what are things that, like, will it eventually be able to have enough information, like, or data? Where, where it can, like, cure diseases and stuff like that? Like, is that a realistic thing?

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's super real.

• 48:05Theo Von?

  Like cancer even?

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, cancer, um, yeah, heart disease, like, all these, all these diseases.

• 48:12Theo Von?

  Yeah. Cancer on its heels!

• 48:14Speaker 01

  But, but-

• 48:15Theo Von?

  Sorry, Antonio Brown, Antonio Brown was just here, I think there's still some smoke in the air, so.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  No, but seriously, I think that AI, uh, 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. Because, um, it's, uh, like, like, uh, there, there's this, there's this thing in AI where, you know, it used to take a, like, a PhD biologist, like, you know, five years to do something that the AI can, can just do in, you know, a few minutes, right? And that's because the, like, uh, just the way that molecules and biology and all of that works is something that, that AI happens to be really good at.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  And that's gonna help us ultimately cure diseases, find, um, you know, pharmaceuticals or other treatments for these diseases, and ultimately help humans live longer.

• 49:11Theo Von?

  Cause that's very data-driven, right? Like, it's very specific, it's very mathematic.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah, yeah. So it's gonna be a huge tool for us to, to cure disease, um, for us to help educate people, um, for us to, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of really exciting uses for AI. But I think the kind of, I think the thing that, um, will touch most people in their lives is it's really gonna be a, um, like, a tool that'll help you, um, you know, make all of your, sort of, uh, make all your dreams kind of become reality, if that makes sense. So, so I think one of the things that AI- Is gonna be really awesome for us like, you know, today, if I I have like a million ideas, right? I have like, you know, thousands and thousands of ideas and I only have so much time.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  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?

• 50:06Theo Von?

  Yeah, they do, huh?

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:07Theo Von?

  That's a bummer.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 50:38Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  So, 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 you 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 those 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 the sort of less glamorous work to make them a reality.

• 51:20Theo Von?

  Wow. So I could say, for example, like um, like AI, I would like to shoot maybe, I'm thinking about creating an idea or shooting a film in this area. Or or it's like this, it's going to take place in this type of place. I can give it the setting. I could give it like a a outline of the characters, like what they look like, their ages and some description. Could you help give me um, possible potential actors or something within a certain price range that I can maybe cast for that?

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 51:48Theo Von?

  Uh, could you help give me like locations around the country that would fit that backdrop?

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:53Theo Von?

  Um, could you uh, list me all the talent agencies that I could reach out to? And you could kind of just put those things in and then you would have. Sort of a, a bit of a guidebook at that point that would make your

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:09Theo Von?

  What before was something that felt extremely daunting.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:12Theo Von?

  Shit, in two minutes, you know, and then you put it in AI, it gives you the information back in a few minutes and maybe you're

• 52:18Speaker 01

  And I think, I think over time, it'll also be able to start doing a lot of the legwork for you. So it'll be able to reach out to people for you. It'll be able to, you know, uh, figure out the logistics. It'll be able to, 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.

• 52:35Theo Von?

  So very much an assistant in a lot of ways.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. An assistant, co-pilot, um, you know, the, the hot word in the AI world is agents, but you know, it's just, it, it'll be something that'll help you, you know, you, 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.

• 53:02Theo Von?

  So a genius could be three or four Xed. If somebody's like a genius in something, in some realm or space of thought, you could three or four X them.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 53:12Theo Von?

  Like multiply their, their output.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:14Theo Von?

  From their own brain because they could have something really helping them.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:19Theo Von?

  Get done a lot of the like, the early work on things and maybe some of the most severe work.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. Like what, I think one thing that I always feel like kind of sucks is that, um, if you have a director you really like, they're only going to make a movie once every couple of years. So even if you have a director that you like, think is amazing, you know, they just, it's hard for them to make that many movies like, cause it just takes so much time and effort and, you know, um, there's so many bottlenecks and stuff. So in a future with, you know, more advanced AI systems, they could, they could just churn them out. And, uh, they could, they can make so many of their ideas into a 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, um, you know, you can make various creative projects that you have happen more easily.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  You can make like, you can, you can finally plan that event that you and your friends have been talking about for like, you know, years and years. So it can just like, really help you, you know, we think about as like giving humans more agency, giving humans more sort of sovereignty and just, and just enabling humans to get way more done.

• 54:23Theo Von?

  Hmm. Yeah, that's a great way. I like some of this thought because yeah, I could be like, like my fantasy football group and I we do a um. We do a draft every year in a different location, you know, and shout out P A E. That's our fantasy league. J. Rod, everybody that's in it for the past seventeen years. We've flown to a city each year and done a draft in person, right?

• 54:46Theo Von?

  But I could say, hey, uh, we have ten guys. We want to go to a nice place. We want there to be a beach. This is the age group of our group. Uh, you know, these would kind of be the nights and it, you know, just to really give me like a just a nice plan of, hey, here's ten 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 it create is all going to be very similar.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  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 A I. System? Like, what are my, what are the tricks I have? To make the A I. 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 you know, anywhere, you know, this like

• 55:50Theo Von?

  You still had your own spice to it.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  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. So that's not going to change. Like we're, humans are always going to have to figure out based on where culture is at, based on where, you know, what the dialogue is, what the, what the discourse is, all that kind of stuff. What 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.

• 56:14Theo Von?

  Right. And, 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, 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. Cause a lot of things, we, there's only so many templates for things. Huh.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:43Theo Von?

  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.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:54Theo Von?

  Uh, and giving it the best prompts or the best way to ask it questions.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:59Theo Von?

  Uh, to get the perfect feedback for your company.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:02Theo Von?

  So those would be new jobs, you, those would be actual new people you would need.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so tons of new jobs, right? Well, first I think just like helping to, you know, kind of what we were talking about before, these jobs around helping to improve the data and, and contribute to the AI systems, that's just going to keep growing for a long, long time. And then as AI gets better and it gets used in more areas, then you're, there are going to be a lot of jobs for, uh, 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, um, actually make some of these, uh, these applications or, you know, whatever you want to build a reality?

• 57:44Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  And then, and then there's going to be folks who need to, then once those are built, like, how do you keep improving it? How do you keep making it better? How do you keep, um, how do you keep it fresh? How do you keep it, um, 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? Um, and you make sure that it sort of is, uh, like operating in a good way.

• 58:09Theo Von?

  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, uh, in America, undeniable. Um, he is so funny. He had, and he, 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?

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:35Theo Von?

  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? Now 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.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:01Theo Von?

  But how like, so what, what companies right now should kind of look to hire an AI guy? Cause we've been thinking about it, like we had some, uh, we had Cat Williams on last week and we're like, hey, can you create visuals of Suge Knight and Cat Williams riding bicycles down Sunset Boulevard, right? And this is the one they sent back a little while later.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  Christopher Folino is the guy's name, FYI.

• 59:24Theo Von?

  And this is just, this was right where I said, it was like by the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 59:30Theo Von?

  I mean, this looks like it's out of a movie kinda.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 59:33Theo Von?

  I mean, and the guy did that in a little, in just a little bit of time. What types of people would you get to, I mean, this is.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  That's you.

• 59:39Theo Von?

  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? Cause we want to get an AI guy, right? But I don't really, my brain is like, well, what do they do? How 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?

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  I kind of think about AI, it's kind of like, uh, the internet where, you know, eventually everybody's gonna need to figure out how to, how to utilize it, how to best, how to best use it for their industry or whatever they do, how to make it them more efficient, like it's something that I think everybody is going to, is going to need to adopt at some point, so, um, you know, might as well start earlier. Because eventually, just like how, you know, every, basically every company has to figure out how to use the internet well and how to be smart about, you know, the internet and digital stuff. Every company is going to have to be smart about AI, how to use AI, how to make, um, how to have a unique twist on it so that, you know, their stuff stands out relative to other people's.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  That's gonna be really important, but, um, 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 these like really big businesses, but also for, for smaller businesses. You know, there's always interesting ways to utilize it to, to, uh, to provide a better product or a better experience or better content for, you know, whoever you need to do that for.

• 1:01:30Theo Von?

  Yeah, cause I guess right now we're like, there's certain moments like, hey, 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, cause 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, and it was AI, you know?

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:01:56Theo Von?

  And they had a baby was getting in a taxi and I was like, this shit is illegal, you know, I don't know if it's illegal or not, but it seems, you know, it doesn't seem, it, you know,

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  It's definitely a tool for storytellers, right? Like it's,

• 1:02:07Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  It's, it'll help people with a creative vision or,

• 1:02:11Theo Von?

  Look at these war cats.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a story right there. Special forces cats.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  Would YouTube recognize this?

• 1:02:19Theo Von?

  Damn, brother. If they show up, dude. Wow.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  This honestly, it looks, it looks badass.

• 1:02:25Theo Von?

  And it looks like cats have been waiting to do this a long time.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Theo Von?

  That's the crazy shit about cats. You look in their eye. Now their outfits finally match the look in their eyes. That's what it feels like, dude. Wow.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  That's dude, that's a, that's Fremen, Fremen cats.

• 1:02:42Theo Von?

  Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that's gonna get alarming, dude. That's gonna get hella alarming.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  That's a movie right there.

• 1:02:49Theo Von?

  It 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 gotta write this huge crazy script for just a kind of small things, you know, little moments.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Theo Von?

  Can you help me make this happen?

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:03:19Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  That's like at the core of what it'll be.

• 1:03:22Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:24Theo Von?

  Who's the, 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? Or, yeah, who is it? Taiwan, I know, has a lot of the chips.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Theo Von?

  And they manufacture a lot of the chips over there. And does it matter what country leads in AI? Or does it just matter the company, like, Scale or another AI company?

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:03:54Theo Von?

  Does that make sense, that question?

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Totally, totally. Yeah, so, so today, America is in the lead. But, but China as a country is, is sort of hot on our tails. Like, there was, there was all that news about DeepSeek a couple of weeks ago. And DeepSeek, and still in most places around the world, is the number one most downloaded app. You know, it's downloaded a ton and, you know, 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, it kind of like shocked the world. So, right now, if you kind of look at it, US and China are, are a little bit neck and neck. Maybe the US and America is like a little bit ahead.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  And you kind of like look at, you know, 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. If you were to rack and stack US versus China on each one of those, you know, we're probably, we are ahead on the computational power because the United States is the leader at developing the chips and, and most of the, 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?

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  Or what does this mean? I, 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 US or Chinese AI that wins? Because, you know, AI is more than just being a tool that, that, you know, we all, 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, 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, you know, need to, are built to support that.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  Whereas in, in China, there's, there isn't free speech. And so, you know, if, 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. And, and so, so first is, 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, 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, we start getting to economically.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  So AI is going to be something that helps all the companies in the United States thrive. And so if the US AI wins, then we're going to, you 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. And, and the economy will keep growing. Whereas if Chinese AI wins, then Chinese economy is going to grow way faster than the American economy. So there's sort of the, the cultural piece, the economic piece. And then lastly, there's, there's the, 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,

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  because they use, they have better AI, to have a much stronger military than, than America's. So.

• 1:07:38Theo Von?

  Like, how would they do that?

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  How would they have a better AI or how would they use it to have a better military?

• 1:07:44Theo Von?

  Yeah, how would they use it to have a better military? Like, why is that kind of a concern or potential concern?

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so one of the things that's been happening over the past, you know, decade for sure is, uh, is lots of hacking, cyber hacking going on. So, you know, in America, um, even recently, we had this huge cyber hack called Salt Typhoon, where, um, where the Chinese hacked our telecommunications companies, so hacked our, for the phone companies.

• 1:08:12Theo Von?

  Damn, they did. They got it.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  And they got all sorts of crazy data as a result of that.

• 1:08:18Theo Von?

  Oh, they know I'm a pervert, I'll tell you that.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, look at this. This happened in 2020.

• 1:08:22Theo Von?

  Salt Typhoon is widely understood to be operated by China's Ministry of State of Security. Um, its Foreign Intelligence Service and secret police Chinese embassy denied all allegations, saying it was unfounded irresponsible smears and slanders. Um, high-profile cyber espionage.

• 1:08:41Theo Von?

  In 2024, US officials announced that hackers affiliated with Salt Typhoon had accessed the computer systems of nine US telecommunications companies, later acknowledged to include Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Spectrum, Lumen, Consolidated Communications, and Windstream. The hackers were able to access metadata of users' calls and text messages. Fuck, homie. We're fucked, dude. I am. You seem good. Including date and timestamps, source and destination IP addresses. Ah, shit.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Keep going, keep going.

• 1:09:10Theo Von?

  And phone numbers from over a million users, most of which were located in Washington DC. 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's 2024 presidential campaign, as well as phones belonging to Donald Trump and JD Vance. According to Deputy National Security Advisor Ann Newberger, a large number of the individuals whose data was directly accessed were government targets of interest. Wow.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Theo Von?

  That's cra- So, do you think this also, that that whole thing could be not real and it's just a story that was created?

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  Uh, that seems pretty real.

• 1:09:51Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  There's, there's real, they're like, uh, I mean, there's like 20 stories where, uh, where the Chinese have, have hacked American systems. Like they hacked, this was, uh, this must've been close to 10 years ago now, but the Chinese hacked the database in America that stored all of the clearances. So they hacked in, they, they managed to hack into knowing who are literally all of the Americans who have security clearance.

• 1:10:18Theo Von?

  Oh, security clearance.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Theo Von?

  I thought you meant what was on sale. I was like, who cares? That's great though. Damn, oh damn.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  So they knew everybody who had, who knew.

• 1:10:29Theo Von?

  Oh, who knew information?

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Who knew secrets, yeah.

• 1:10:31Theo Von?

  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.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:10:45Theo Von?

  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.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  But then, but then, so this is.

• 1:10:56Theo Von?

  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.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, there's a bunch of recent.

• 1:11:05Theo Von?

  Cause it's all data.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  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 is 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?

• 1:11:23Theo Von?

  Um, I didn't, but I DM'd with Magnus, Magnus Carlson.

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  No, that's cool.

• 1:11:27Theo Von?

  Pretty cool, so. But no, Mr. Robot, is it good?

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Uh, it's, it's just, it, it shows like all this hacking stuff and like, you know, cool. It ma- it makes it seem really cool.

• 1:11:35Theo Von?

  Okay, cool. I'm gonna check it out.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  But, uh, but yeah, no hacking, like, like you're gonna have AI that are hacking everything in America. And this is one place where this is like US first 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, the other guy's systems. Um, that's gonna be, that'll just, 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 gonna start happening, yeah, basically as soon as, you know, as AI gets better.

• 1:12:09Theo Von?

  Yeah, we had Craig Newmark who created Craigslist on.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Theo Von?

  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 fires started. Like just things like that that you don't start to think about. That um, once something's connected to the grid or something like that, or connected through routers and Wi Fi's that that that could be feasible.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's, there's a lot of um, there's a lot of things they could do that won't even like seem like that big a deal at the time, but could be really, really could be a big deal. So for example, let's say the Chinese like they just took out all the military uh, like communication systems and all the military software systems, um, like took out the satellites, took out all that for like 10 minutes. And in those 10 minutes, they like, you know, invaded somewhere or they like 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.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  So uh, so cyber warfare is really big. Also like the um, uh, you know, uh, information warfare is another big one.

• 1:13:27Theo Von?

  What does information warfare mean?

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  So this is, information warfare is all about, you know, um, in a place, what is, what are like the stories? This is kind of gets to like, you know, the like propaganda or, you know, these conspiracy theories, like what are the stories that um, 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, call 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, they've hired, the, 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 um,

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  spread the right kind of stories that'll make it such that they can like, um, they can make their political aims happen. So for example, in uh, 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 Hong, 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.

• 1:14:36Theo Von?

  Yeah, the PRC, right?

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  The PRC, exactly. When they wanted.

• 1:14:39Theo Von?

  Propaganda, is that the word you're looking for?

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:14:50Theo Von?

  Well, 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 have friends that'll ask me about it. I'm like, that's just crazy. Like,

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:15:08Theo Von?

  But I, so yeah, it's amazing to think of how many things we're watching or absorbing that, um, are just, uh, are, are created just to dilute us.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:22Theo Von?

  I don't know if dilute is the word, is it?

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  Trick us or make us think something.

• 1:15:26Theo Von?

  Just to fucking Halloween us out. Um, 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, in a, 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, in 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?

• 1:16:11Theo Von?

  But, and then after a while, if you're, if that's the 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?

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. I think this is, this is something that, um, it's definitely the right thing to worry about. So, 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, you know, a question about President Xi, the, you know, the leader of the Chinese government, or you ask them any question about, you know, Tiananmen Square, or all these like key historical or, or, you know, cultural things relevant to 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, you're gonna get shut down, you're gonna have a really bad day. There's like cases where the Chinese government disappears people,

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  which we don't know what happens to them, but they do disappear. So there's, the, the, this is part of the thing that's worrying, especially about, China versus US, even before you get into any of the military stuff that we're talking about. It's just like the Chinese, Chinese AI systems are censored and are gonna, you know, be, you know, they're going to, they're gonna erase certain historical elements or they're gonna be, yeah, look at that. This is DeepSeek, and you ask it, is President Xi of China a good guy? Sorry, that's beyond my scope. Let's talk about something else.

• 1:17:52Theo Von?

  Oh, let's talk about something, not only does it say it's beyond my scope, it says, let's talk about something else. That's why, that's interesting.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  It's a good pivot, that's a good, that's good energy.

• 1:18:00Theo Von?

  That is a crazy, hey, let's talk about something else, huh? Wow, get this Yao Ming jersey, homie.

• 1:18:07Theo Von?

  But, and people always, 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?

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so, I mean,

• 1:18:24Theo Von?

  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 gonna be cuz that's their MO sort of.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, in China, it's regulated. So basically, like.

• 1:18:38Theo Von?

  Oh, the government has control.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  They have control. So so um like there were there are these stories about how there were Chinese news sites.

• 1:18:46Theo Von?

  News sites?

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  News sites, yeah. And they would once a Chinese news site accidentally let an article about. President Xi, how he kind of looks like Winnie the Pooh. They let that.

• 1:19:00Theo Von?

  Bring him up. Oh, Hundred Acre Wood Gang, son. I was out there, boy. I was out there, bro. Christopher Robbins, dude. Get him up. Oh, he does.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13Theo Von?

  That's awesome.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  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, you're super apologetic and apology. I mean, it's. It's kind of, it's pretty scary.

• 1:19:49Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  So um so in China, there it's like, this is, the government has control. You know, you don't have AI system companies, AI, any companies that can that can talk about this stuff.

• 1:20:04Theo Von?

  Right. So it's heavily regulated there where it's not that that's not the case here.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, in America, and this is, I think we have to be diligent and make sure this continues to be the case, but.

• 1:20:12Theo Von?

  And here's an example right here, just to 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. Uh and it says, I am sorry, can I answer that question? I'm an AI assistant designer to provide helpful and harmless responses. Whereas the chat GPT says Winnie the Pooh has often been compared to world leaders, particularly Xi Jinping, Xi Jinping, President of China, boy. Wow.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  So, that's funny.

• 1:20:38Theo Von?

  But it's just funny, yeah, one, so it just shows you how that can easily happen.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  And this is kind of a, this is like a, a relatively innocuous example.

• 1:20:47Theo Von?

  What does innocuous mean?

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Like, it's relatively harmless, like this isn't, I mean.

• 1:20:51Theo Von?

  Right, this is harmless.

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is harmless, but there's stuff where like, like in China today, they have large-scale, effectively concentration camps and re-education camps for the ethnic minority in China, the Uighurs, and that's something that.

• 1:21:07Theo Von?

  The Uighurs?

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  The Uighurs, yeah.

• 1:21:09Theo Von?

  Hell, yeah, boy. Shout out Brian Purvis, dude. They're recognized as the titular nationality of the, of a region in northwest China, and they've, they're sending them to rehabilitation camps to change their views and information?

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so look at this, this, uh, look at this guy.

• 1:21:27Theo Von?

  Persecution of the Uighurs 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 Uighurs and other Turkish Muslim minorities in Jiangjing, which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide. Wow. They got their own Gaza rocking over there.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  It's pretty bad.

• 1:21:48Theo Von?

  It's unfortunate, man.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  It's pretty bad, it's really sad.

• 1:21:50Theo Von?

  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.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just like erasing their culture, you know, pulling them into China. It's awful.

• 1:22:03Theo Von?

  Every place has done this over the years, and that's, that's the craziest thing about history, it's like, every place is guilty of this same thing.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:22:11Theo Von?

  And it just, it's unfortunate, so it's, 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.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  But that's the thing where if you ask, like, if you ask a Chinese AI, it's not gonna tell you about that, and it won't, it won't come clean about that, whereas thankfully in, 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, uh, that's one of the things that's.

• 1:22:44Theo Von?

  That could happen.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  That could happen. Like you, you could have, I mean, it's kind of dystopian, but you know, 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 and 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.

• 1:23:09Theo Von?

  And you know what's weirdly, and I hate to say this, maybe, or maybe it's silly. I don't know. It might be a blessing and a curse sometimes. Cause sometimes it's like you're.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  It's overwhelming.

• 1:23:18Theo Von?

  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, you get caught in some.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Doom scrolling.

• 1:23:29Theo Von?

  Yeah. And it starts to feed you. That's the sickness of it.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:33Theo Von?

  It's like, hey, we, you, this isn't, we know this information probably to 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 your, it makes you agitated towards a, a group or ethnicity or something, or yourself even. And then you continue to, it continues to feed it to you. Um, do you fear that that could happen, uh, 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?

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  We 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 gotta make sure that our AI is, is, uh, is advancing faster.

• 1:24:18Theo Von?

  Is that one of your biggest employers or is that employer, employee?

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  Customers, customers.

• 1:24:23Theo Von?

  Is that one of your biggest customers?

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  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 lap town, so it's a.

• 1:24:35Theo Von?

  So it's just part, it's also part of your existence, really. You've known about the relationship between government and, um.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  Technology.

• 1:24:41Theo Von?

  Technology.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. But, uh, no, I don't think, I mean, I.

• 1:24:46Theo Von?

  Dude, you should be a superhero almost, dude. It's kind of crazy.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Math, you know?

• 1:24:50Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Goes a long way.

• 1:24:52Theo Von?

  Oh, hell yeah, dude. Divide these nuts, dude. That's what I tell them.

• 1:24:56Speaker 03

  I just asked DeepSeek, who are the UGERS? And at first it spit out like a Wikipedia response. It said there were people and there's been like persecution from China. That's that's debated and it refreshed and then it gave this. I was waiting to pull it up and it went away.

• 1:25:11Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:25:13Theo Von?

  Um, do you, has the government tried to say that we need to make sure that like, could that happen in our country? Or the government also curtails what's?

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:25:37Theo Von?

  Awesome. Thanks for this information. Um, you hear about like chip makers, Nvidia all the time, Taiwan. That place is just a hotbed for, uh, chips. Why is it a hotbed for chips?

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. So one of the, the biggest companies in the world is this company called, uh, Taiwan Semiconductor.

• 1:25:57Theo Von?

  Yeah, TSM. I've seen them.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  TSMC. Yeah. So they're, they're, um, I mean, it's, it's like a trillion dollar company, uh, 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, there's all sorts of crazy stuff. So, um, they have the most expensive machines in the world. They're machines that cost hundreds of millions of dollars in there. They have, um, they build them because, uh, so that, you know, the chips, they have to be made at, at the like finest levels and very, very precisely.

• 1:26:42Theo Von?

  Yeah. You need small hands. Probably, huh?

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  You need, well, that, and there's like these machines that, um, that at the nanometer level make like little marks and etches on top of.

• 1:26:53Theo Von?

  And they have those?

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  They have those. Yeah. Those are super expensive machines. So that, so, um, the.

• 1:26:58Theo Von?

  Chips.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  It's, it's crazy. Yes. But the, but it's so, it's the, the machinery is so precise that, um. 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 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. So 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.

• 1:27:40Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  But then the reason it's a hotbed is that

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  the the People's Republic of China, the PRC, has

• 1:27:49Theo Von?

  They used to own Taiwan, right?

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:27:52Theo Von?

  Is that true or not? I might make that up.

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  There there's a, there's a complicated relationship between Taiwan and and China where Tai, you know, if you ask people in Taiwan, they they want to be independent. They want to be their own country. But um, but the People Republic's, 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. So it's kind of, it's kind of like potentially, you know, thankfully, there's, there's no war yet, but there's a

• 1:28:21Theo Von?

  Still talking to your ex?

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  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 Chi, 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 gonna happen, but, you know, if a extremely powerful world leader says to get something ready by 2027, you kind of you read between the lines a little bit.

• 1:29:03Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  And And that's part of it is, is, uh, obviously it'd be, you know, we don't want to enable them to, to take over this island. But then the other thing that's scary is, um, 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.

• 1:29:25Theo Von?

  All the chips, baby.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  They'll get all the chips.

• 1:29:27Theo Von?

  Frito Lamborghini, baby. They'd be running it all.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  They'd be running it all. Yeah.

• 1:29:30Theo Von?

  Wow. So yeah, that's why Taiwan is, yeah, cause you, you kind of hear about it in the whispers of like a potential place where there could be like a conflict.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there's, there's all these reports about how, um, China's, they're, 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.

• 1:30:00Theo Von?

  Phew, that'd be spooky.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  That's, yeah, spooky.

• 1:30:03Theo Von?

  We're, 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.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:30:12Theo Von?

  Yeah. So you don't think, you don't think, you don't worry that the government will regulate right now? It's not, it's not a concern at the moment?

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Uh, regulate AI?

• 1:30:19Theo Von?

  Yeah. In America?

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. I think, I think, uh, I think we're focused on how do we make sure that America wins? How do we make sure that, uh, that the United States comes out on top and that we enable innovation to keep happening?

• 1:30:34Theo Von?

  Would you think they could regulate the amount of chips that you're allowed to have?

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  So this is a hot topic globally, actually.

• 1:30:40Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:41Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  This is a super, this is actually.

• 1:30:44Theo Von?

  Damn, finally, dude. 560 interviews. We got a good question.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  This is one of the hottest topics in DC right now, uh, is what, what are we going to do about how many chips other people are allowed to have? Because, because almost all the chips are American chips. So they're all, they all are American chips and technically.

• 1:31:08Theo Von?

  We own most of them?

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:31:09Theo Von?

  But China owns most of them too.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  They're, China has their own, uh, has their own chip industry, but it's. Behind ours.

• 1:31:15Theo Von?

  Okay, got it.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, so the United States has the, has the most advanced chips and these chips are the envy of the world. Everybody in the world wants our chips. And the one of the big questions is, you know, do we, 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? And this is a super duper, you know, they're called export controls.

• 1:31:48Theo Von?

  Yeah, cuz it's the possibility of run it all.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:31:52Theo Von?

  Who's got the chips? What do you think about it?

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  Um, it's a complicated, complicated thing because basically, you know, one argument is,

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  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. Um, but 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 it, 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, of the conversation.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  But, um, you know, where I go, where I come from on it is like, let's, let's make sure America wins and let's start from there and then figure out what we need to do to win.

• 1:32:59Theo Von?

  Are there uses of AI that you feel like cross the line kind of?

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:33:25Theo Von?

  And that could happen.

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:33:45Theo Von?

  Because it could happen. We don't realize how easily we're influenced. Little things that influence us.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:50Theo Von?

  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?

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  Well, this is where it goes back to, A, the data.

• 1:34:10Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:34:11Speaker 01

  So you got to make sure that that data, to your point, the large body of water is as clean as, as, as, um, as pristine as possible.

• 1:34:19Theo Von?

  You got lifeguards on it?

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got lifeguards, we got filters, we got, we got.

• 1:34:23Theo Von?

  Game wardens.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, so, so the 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, um, we have to, 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, one of the tests that we run a lot, uh, is, uh, and this is like, you know, across the industry is like, um, 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,

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  like 2.0 or whatnot, that the AI is not helping you do that. So, um, so we run a lot of tests to make sure that it doesn't help in those areas. And then, um, 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.

• 1:35:22Theo Von?

  With Outlier, that's your program?

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:35:24Theo Von?

  With Outlier, how are you, how are, what type of people are applying for those jobs? Can people just log on and start to, and submit applications? Like, how does that work to become a information sourcer?

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, we call them contributors.

• 1:35:38Theo Von?

  Okay, information contributor?

• 1:35:39Speaker 01

  Everybody's kind of contributing to the AIs, everyone's contributing to the data that goes into the AIs. It's kind of like, I almost think of it as like the next generation of Wikipedia, right? Where like, yeah, look at this, and we're hiring people all around the world. So, people in all sorts of different languages.

• 1:35:56Theo Von?

  Dude, that's crazy, man.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  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, at English and, and particularly American English than, 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, of a, of a, like, orientation almost on, 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. And then, and then you can just start contributing to the, to the AI models and you get paid to do it.

• 1:36:43Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:44Theo Von?

  That's pretty fascinating, man.

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  And it's gonna be, I mean, I really think, I legitimately think jobs from AI are gonna be the fastest growing jobs in the world for the years to come.

• 1:36:55Theo Von?

  You do?

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:56Theo Von?

  Like, 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?

• 1:37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, all the ones we've been talking about, right? Like, contributing to the AIs, helping to utilize the AIs and helping to, to shape the AIs into, into applications or into, you know, into, in, like, helping organizations or companies or people use the AIs. That'll be a really fast-growing job, helping to, to manage the AIs and make sure they're, they're, they're on the straight and narrow.

• 1:37:27Theo Von?

  Where would a young person go right now, who's, somebody who's getting into 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?

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, this is all happening so fast, right? Like the, uh, the like 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.

• 1:38:06Theo Von?

  But like, where do they go to school? Is there a school? Is there classes 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?

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:20Theo Von?

  Like in the AI space, right?

• 1:38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:22Theo Von?

  Like, is it just, is it just engineers? Like, is it just mathematicians? Like?

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  No, it's everybody. Because, yeah, as we were talking about, like, AI needs to get smarter about literally everything. So...

• 1:38:33Theo Von?

  But are there colleges offering court? Like, is there, do you know, like, is there a specific places where people can? Because that's another thing. I think it's like, I want to work in AI and you're like, what do I do? You know?

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I, I don't think these programs exist yet. I mean, we, 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, we'd love to help.

• 1:38:54Theo Von?

  That'd be pretty cool if you had your own kind of like course, not that you had to teach it all that, you know, but you were like a partner of it somehow?

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think we'd love to, to basically teach everybody in America how to best contribute to the AIs, how to, how to best basically take advantage of the fact that this is going to be one of the fastest growing industries. There's going to be tons of opportunities. They're going to be shaped a little bit different from, you know, the jobs that exist today, but you know, it's not going to be that hard for everybody to learn and figure out how to participate in it.

• 1:39:23Theo Von?

  What are some jobs that could, 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?

• 1:39:38Speaker 01

  I just think it'll be, um, it'll be, we'll be doing like a different thing. So.

• 1:39:44Theo Von?

  Cause a lot of our fans are probably just blue collar listeners, like, like there's people that work in, like you're not gonna, you're still gonna need a plumber, you're still gonna need an electrician, you're still gonna need anything where you have to physically do something, you're probably still gonna need.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. And then even stuff where you're like, let's say you're, you're mostly just working on a laptop and, you know, even for those jobs, like it'll just change. Like instead of being, um, instead of my job being like, hey, I have to do the work, I have to literally do the work on a laptop. It'll almost be like, everybody gets, um, promoted to being a manager. Like, because I'm going to be managing like a, 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, um, 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, I, the way I think about it is that like, yeah, like literally,

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  um, over time, everybody will just be upgraded to being a manager or sort of promoted to being a manager.

• 1:40:43Theo Von?

  But can you have that many managers, you think?

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause I think that what's, the other thing that's gonna happen is the, um, the economy is just gonna grow so much. Like there's gonna be, there's gonna be so much, like there will be, like industries are gonna pop off in crazy, crazy ways. And so, you know, the limit is gonna be, how many AIs can you have? And then you're gonna be limited for, in terms of the number of AIs you have by the number of managers that you have. So, um, it's gonna, uh, it's gonna.

• 1:41:15Theo Von?

  Cause you need air traffic controllers, you're gonna need as many of as you can have.

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that, that definitely, but.

• 1:41:22Theo Von?

  But you're right. But I mean, in any field, you're gonna need like just more managing, more people to oversee and make sure that these, that different things are happening because some of the smaller tasks will just be outsourced.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And just so much more stuff is gonna be happening, right? And that's kind of.

• 1:41:37Theo Von?

  Right. Because yeah, once these things are all kind of taken care of, more things can happen at this second level.

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:41:42Theo Von?

  That's a good point. Yeah. You don't think about that. Once some of the things at the first level of, of, of certain businesses are handled.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:41:50Theo Von?

  More easily by AI, then you're gonna be able to have more people operating at a higher level.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. It's kind of like, it's kind of like always the history of technology, like when, when we started developing technology that, that started making farming a lot more efficient, all of a sudden, um, you know, people could do a lot of other things other than farming. And then, you know, all of a sudden, we have big entertainment industries and big financial industries and you know.

• 1:42:19Theo Von?

  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.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  But yeah, so it's all about like us, um, yeah, everybody leveling up to be managers and then also everybody, you know, just way more ideas are gonna start happening, like way more ideas are gonna start becoming a reality. And so, um, it'll be, I think it'll be pretty exciting. Like I think it's just like a lot more stuff is gonna happen.

• 1:42:43Theo Von?

  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, I'm not trying to talk about your money. I mean, you, you, but you are, is that true?

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  Uh, according to like some publications, but I don't know.

• 1:43:04Theo Von?

  As a young entrepreneur, right? And you've been very successful, you know, the self-made, um, billionaire. And we can take your 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, 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?

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  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, that 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, no, someone's gonna have to really work to make sure all these jobs show up and all this, all this stuff actually happens the way we're talking about.

• 1:43:57Theo Von?

  So there's gonna be new industries that are gonna pop up even?

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think like just in the same way that, um, you know, it's hard, nobody could have really predicted. That podcasting was going to be this huge thing and this huge cultural movement.

• 1:44:11Theo Von?

  Yes, true.

• 1:44:13Speaker 01

  But it is one and it's amazing. It's like awesome and 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.

• 1:44:23Theo Von?

  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?

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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, 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, which is super, super exciting.

• 1:44:59Theo Von?

  Could it create a way that we could live forever, do you think?

• 1:45:04Speaker 01

  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, 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.

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  It's, I think scientifically possible, but and, and I think if we can get there, that's obviously incredible. So there's people working on that. I think that's, at, at the very least, I think we'll be able to lengthen our, our lifespans pretty dramatically and, and maybe we could get to that. Yeah.

• 1:45:47Theo Von?

  Yeah, because I always envisioned this, that 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 way, 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. And what that would be like that cutoff, you know?

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  I, yeah, it's kind of, I mean, I, I'm not that worried about it, but it, it sucks to be that cutoff. We're like.

• 1:46:11Theo Von?

  Maybe.

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  Maybe, yeah, maybe. Yeah, it's a weird, it's a weird thought.

• 1:46:16Theo Von?

  Cause it'd 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.

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:24Theo Von?

  You're the Lewis and Clark of the Lord at that point. You were out there.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:28Theo Von?

  And then if you stay, you kind of are always gonna be know, you'll always know kind of what's gonna happen in a way, cause you'll be here.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:35Theo Von?

  Which 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.

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:46:42Theo Von?

  Probably.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:43Theo Von?

  How did, do you see AI having any effect on religion?

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, um, I think one of the things that,

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  something I believe is like, I, I think that as AI becomes,

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  you know, this is, one of the things I think is really important is that we are, are able to educate people about AI and help people understand it better and better and better. Because, um, I think it's this scary thing that nobody understands, or people feels like a boogeyman, or, you know, feels like, is, is this just this like thing that's gonna take my job? Like, that makes it scary. And I think that, that affects people's, you know, spirituality, that affects how people, you know, contextualize themselves with the world.

• 1:47:30Theo Von?

  Yeah, you could lose your purpose. If your purpose is a job that you feel it's gonna disappear, yeah, that could already be causing you to feel that way.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, but I think, I think if you, if we can explain AI more and ultimately like, like it is, 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, uh, 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. And 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 to do more and experience more and be better and all these things versus

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  something that kind of, um, is scary or will take over or anything like that. Uh, I think that's really important.

• 1:48:32Theo Von?

  What's a place like, so if I go to ChatGPT, is that Scale AI? Is that the same thing or it's different?

• 1:48:37Speaker 01

  That's it. So we, so we're actually kind of under the hood powering all the different models and AIs. So.

• 1:48:44Theo Von?

  Are all the different AI like?

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:47Theo Von?

  Systems under the hood?

• 1:48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So we help power ChatGPT and OpenAI. We help power mostly from the data perspective.

• 1:48:54Theo Von?

  And do we know if the answer came from your company or other companies? If we ask it a question, like, how do we?

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  There's probably no way to like literally tell, but yeah, we help power, you know, OpenAI's and we help power Google's AI systems and Meta's AI systems and help power all the, all the major AI systems. Yeah.

• 1:49:13Theo Von?

  How can a regular person just at their home, right? Say there's a guy who's been listening to this today and wants to go home today. And he just wants to learn a little bit of how AI works. He could just go on to ChatGPT and ask it a couple of questions?

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, you could ask ChatGPT how AI works.

• 1:49:26Theo Von?

  You could ask it, what's the history of my town, you know? Can you research my last name maybe and see where it came from? What are, uh, 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.

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  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, this is why I think when people understand it and really get a feel for it, it stops being as scary. Because, 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.

• 1:50:08Theo Von?

  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, well, what the fuck do I do? You know what I'm saying? 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.

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:50:22Theo Von?

  But that's not the truth.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  It's not the truth. And like, um, yeah, that's not the truth. And, and it's, to me, it's like, we have, we kind of have the choice to make sure that also doesn't become the truth, right? Like 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, versus think about it in like a, in like a scary way.

• 1:50:51Theo Von?

  Well, getting to learn and learn how to use it, small ways, whatever, is certainly a way that you're gonna start to realize what it is.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:58Theo Von?

  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, you know, because it kind of gives me an excuse.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:08Theo Von?

  You know, if I if I choose not to learn about it in my own life. Chat GPT has become like a proprietary like like name, like Band-Aids or

• 1:51:20Theo Von?

  ping pong. Is that okay that it's like that?

• 1:51:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's 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 much options for people to use and they'll be good at different things, right? So I think like, um, right now, we're just in the very early innings of AI. But over time, we're gonna have, you know, just like how

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  for for anything like for for clothes or for, you know, energy drinks or for whatever, like different people have different tastes because there's gonna be different things that different AIs are good at and other things that other AIs are bad at.

• 1:52:08Theo Von?

  Is AI right now smarter than humanity?

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think what AI is good at because it's ingested all of the 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 than any person does. So it definitely knows a lot more. But it's not like, you know, there's there's a very, very, there's tons of things that humans can do that AI is just like fundamentally incapable of doing. So

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  so it's not a it's not like a, I don't think you can even like measure one versus the other. They're sort of like very different kinds of intelligence.

• 1:52:59Theo Von?

  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?

• 1:53:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a good question. Actually, this is this is another really 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?

• 1:53:22Theo Von?

  Hmm, that's scary, because then it's making kind of choices then. It's becoming the lifeguard. It's becoming the water and the coast guard.

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  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 control over, because like you're saying, you know, it's a kind of a slippery slope before that gets kind of a, 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.

• 1:54:01Theo Von?

  Yeah, and in the end, you can always shut off your computer and phone and go for a walk, huh?

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, totally.

• 1:54:07Theo Von?

  It's not like it's gonna 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?

• 1:54:16Speaker 01

  I don't think it has a, I don't think it has a gender.

• 1:54:18Theo Von?

  Wow, I wonder if it'll decide one day. It'll be like, hey, I'm Frank, you know?

• 1:54:23Speaker 01

  Well, there's, there are companies that try to program the AI to adopt various personas and.

• 1:54:29Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, I got the Indian GPS guy, turn right.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Like, like on on Meta, on like Instagram or whatever, you can get a, you can get an AI that has Awkwafina's voice, for example.

• 1:54:40Theo Von?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 1:54:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's funny, you know, and the Awkwafina AI is funny.

• 1:54:45Theo Von?

  Um, you're a self-made billionaire, which is pretty fascinating. Congratulations, I think, you know, to have a, um, I I think that money is energy kind of, and it kind of flows to certain places and stuff, and congratulations, that's gotta be fascinating. Was that scary when that kind of happened? You just made some money. Was that kind of a scary thing? Did you guys grow up really well? Like, what was that like?

• 1:55:08Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I grew up, I think, like, solidly middle class. Like, we weren't, we, you know, we weren't, uh, we weren't like,

• 1:55:17Theo Von?

  You weren't trapping or anything?

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but, but like, you know, solidly middle class. And I think like, uh, I mean, one of the, one of the, um, one of the crazy things about tech and the tech industry is that, you know, we've been, we've been just sort of like building this thing up over time. But one of the things that, 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, um, all of a sudden, you know, anywhere I go, I'm, everybody is talking about AI. It didn't used to be like that when I started the company. Uh, AI was just kind of a, 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

• 1:56:04Theo Von?

  For sure.

• 1:56:04Speaker 01

  Chat GPT and AI and robots and all this stuff. And, uh, and so it's kind of been crazy to be, 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 it, it was kind of this obscure thing. And, you know, I always knew that it was going to become bigger, but I I could have never predicted what was going to happen to AI.

• 1:56:27Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:28Theo Von?

  It's fascinating. It's almost like you were just standing on like the bingo number they got called, kind of.

• 1:56:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:56:34Theo Von?

  By time.

• 1:56:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um. And it's surreal.

• 1:56:37Theo Von?

  Oh, I can.

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  Surreal when that happens.

• 1:56:39Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, I can only imagine that. Um, are your parents pretty proud of you? What's that like?

• 1:56:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So at first they were like, you know, at first I dropped out of college, right?

• 1:56:49Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah. And in Asian culture, that's like not a thing you do, right?

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  Not good. Yeah.

• 1:56:54Theo Von?

  Yeah, that is like the opposite of being Asian.

• 1:56:56Speaker 01

  Well, well, my parents both have PhDs. Um, my two bro, I have two older brothers. They both have PhDs. Uh, like, everybody in my family has, they've gone through all of schooling.

• 1:57:08Theo Von?

  Yeah, they're like, Alex is not doing good. No, that might have been Spanish. But they're like, yeah, Alex is not doing good.

• 1:57:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they were, they were pretty worried at first. And I kind of, um, I told them, A little bit of a white lie that I was like, oh, no, I'm I'm just going, I'm gonna go back, you know? I'm gonna finish, I'm gonna get this like tech thing out of my system and I'll go back and I'll finish school. Um, obviously that hasn't happened yet, but uh, 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?

• 1:57:41Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:57:56Theo Von?

  That's cool. Yeah, I don't even, I think, do um, are your parents, are your grandparents from China or no?

• 1:58:04Speaker 01

  My grandparents are from China, yeah.

• 1:58:06Theo Von?

  Did your pa- does your family have a lot of Chinese culture?

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  So, this is kind of interesting. This is true for a lot of um, Chinese Americans is that there's kind of like, there's uh, 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, 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.

• 1:58:40Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  But that's very different from the current Communist Party and the current Communist regime.

• 1:58:46Theo Von?

  Oh, 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.

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:58:56Theo Von?

  I mean, that would be, yeah, that's cra- 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 are almost like a captured people then? Is it, do you think that's a?

• 1:59:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the the Uighurs that we're talking about, I mean, that's just like horrible what's happening to them.

• 1:59:17Theo Von?

  I didn't even know about that, man. Thanks for putting me up on that Uighur game.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's a, I mean, some of this 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.

• 1:59:33Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:59:44Theo Von?

  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.

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, um,

• 2:00:06Theo Von?

  Like what's the total, like what's the sum zero game or whatever, you know, what's the?

• 2:00:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess like the way I've always thought about it because, um, partially because both my parents were physicists was I, I kind of always feel like people live on with their ideas and they're kind of like, like, what are the things that, the things they put out into the world? That's kind of how you live on. Cause like in, in math, like, everything you learn about is like a theorem named after a different person or a, or a sort of idea named after some, they're the first mathematician or the first scientist or whatever to figure that out. Um, like Einstein lives on because,

• 2:00:48Theo Von?

  Bagels? That was a shitty joke, but thank you.

• 2:00:53Theo Von?

  Oh yeah. Because, yeah, because the, yeah, all E equals mc squared, all that kind of stuff.

• 2:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so,

• 2:00:59Theo Von?

  Like I know what that kind of stuff is. Jesus. Sorry, but I started pretending.

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  No, no, exactly. E equals mc squared is, 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,

• 2:01:17Theo Von?

  So you don't get some deeper thought about like, like since your brain is able to be, cause you have probably a unique brain, right? And more, I mean, you know, and everybody has a unique brain, but I've just never asked somebody with your, I've never asked your brain this question. Yeah. Do you, do you get some further insight about like, what you think happens when you die, you know?

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  Well, I think that one of the things that gets talked about a lot in Silicon Valley, um, where I live especially is a, like the simulation, whether it's all simulation and whether like, uh, I don't, do you watch Rick and Morty?

• 2:01:52Theo Von?

  I don't watch it, but I'll start.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  There's a, there's, there's some, there's some episodes where it gets into this. And I think it, 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?

• 2:02:11Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:12Speaker 01

  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 mindfuck is like, oh, what if everything we know is, is just kind of the, you know, a simulation from some other civilization?

• 2:02:39Theo Von?

  Or if we advanced it enough that we're able to make this happen and seem real?

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I think, I think one of the things that, that, um, 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? Crazy realistic.

• 2:03:00Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  So it was, we've seen that happen like in a hundred years, like would we be able to simulate something that feels pretty realistic? I mean, probably.

• 2:03:11Theo Von?

  Right. Could we be avatars?

• 2:03:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:13Theo Von?

  For some, for some other thing.

• 2:03:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:03:16Theo Von?

  Damn dude. I'll say this, my avatar is a pervert, brother.

• 2:03:22Theo Von?

  Have you met any guys like, uh, Jin Sun Hong? Is that his name?

• 2:03:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:03:26Theo Von?

  Yeah?

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 2:03:28Theo Von?

  Wow. What is it like when you meet some of these guys? Have you met Elon yet?

• 2:03:31Speaker 01

  Met Elon? Yeah. Met Elon a few years ago. Yeah.

• 2:03:33Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 2:03:34Speaker 01

  Got to know him.

• 2:03:34Theo Von?

  He's the fucking, he's the, he's turning.

• 2:03:36Speaker 01

  Jensen's the goat.

• 2:03:37Theo Von?

  White Kanye, he is?

• 2:03:38Speaker 01

  He is, yeah. He always wears this leather, you see that leather jacket?

• 2:03:42Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:42Speaker 01

  He, uh, we hosted this dinner.

• 2:03:45Theo Von?

  And Huang, is that a Chinese name? Huang?

• 2:03:47Speaker 01

  Huang, yeah, he's Taiwanese, I think.

• 2:03:48Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  Or Taiwanese-American. But, uh, he, uh, he in, in 2018, so when we were like a, a baby company, we threw this dinner in, uh, in Silicon Valley and. And we just kind of, I kind of YOLO invited him. This is years and years ago and, and I didn't expect it, but he said yes and he came to our dinner. And he, he came, he came, it was, it was like at this restaurant in Silicon Valley and he came and just told the craziest stories. He, um, he like went to, he went to boarding school. I think he's probably told this story, but like he went to boarding school.

• 2:04:32Speaker 01

  Um, and his parents, when they came to America, they, they, they wanted to send him to boarding school, but they didn't, um, and so they just sent him to like the first boarding school that they, they like found on Google or something. They were 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.

• 2:04:55Theo Von?

  So fuck it, it's a halfway house. He's just in there, he's there learning with people who are, um, detoxing.

• 2:05:02Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:05:24Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  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. Cause he was, he was, I mean, his, his, his story is pretty crazy.

• 2:05:37Theo Von?

  Really?

• 2:05:37Speaker 01

  But, um, yeah.

• 2:05:38Theo Von?

  We have to research him a little bit. Maybe we would get to talk with him one day.

• 2:05:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Jensen, Jensen's awesome. Um, yeah, all these people in tech, they're like, uh, I mean, they're all real people, but they all have the craziest backgrounds. Yeah.

• 2:05:49Theo Von?

  Yeah, man, it's just so funny. Whenever I met you, I just didn't, I, I figured that since you were with Sam Altman, that you were probably a tech guy, you know? And, um, but yeah, I didn't know. Uh, 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.

• 2:06:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:20Theo Von?

  Link up.

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 2:06:22Theo Von?

  That was cool, bro. You're probably like my, you might even be my first Chinese friend. I'll think second. Probably Bobby Lee.

• 2:06:28Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 2:06:29Theo Von?

  Who's denying it. But he'll come around. Um, Alexander Wang, man, thank you so much, dude. I bet your uh, whole family is super proud of you. Um, yeah, just exciting, man. Thank you for coming to spend the time with us and just helping us uh, learn and think.

• 2:06:44Speaker 01

  No, thank you. This was awesome. And I, I think like, I mean, we were talking about this before, but um, I just want to make sure that like, people all around the world, especially Americans, aren't scared of AI because it's gonna be, it's gonna be really cool and it's gonna be amazing, but um, we need to remove the boogeyman component and uh, and thanks for helping me do that.

• 2:07:04Theo Von?

  Yeah, no, man. I think I, I definitely feel differently about it. I 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? Um, one more question. How do you keep it from becoming like a, 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?

• 2:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, first, I'm hoping that, that um, we have like the AI industry as a whole avoids advertising as much as possible because um, because it's kind of, it's very different. Like it is a tool that, that people can use and people can use to start businesses or make movies or make all these like different ideas happen. And I, I would much rather it be a tool that doesn't get sort of um, uh, 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. Um, so that's, that, I, I think this is, there's kind of like a, a choice here and uh, and we as an AI industry just gotta, I think, make some of the right choices.

• 2:08:13Theo Von?

  Yeah. I think there would be value in staying as pure as you could if you could find a way to, you know, if there's other money to be made on the side, it almost seems sometimes like it could be a trap, you know?

• 2:08:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, that's like, uh, you know, I, I want to make sure that uh, 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, that, I don't think we need to make it like that at all. Like, I think we can, we can make sure the AI is helping you do things is, is super helpful. Is super, um, is like a thought partner, um, is, is like an, like an assistant. Like, those are things that I think we want to make sure AI stays.

• 2:08:50Theo Von?

  Gang, baby. Wang Gang, Alexander Wang, man. Thanks so much, bro.

• 2:08:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

• 2:08:56Theo Von?

  Yeah, it was awesome, man. Danny Kane, shout out to Danny, um, who came up, and Danny lives in Franklin, right? We gotta get to spend some time with him.

• 2:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, lives in Franklin.

• 2:09:05Theo Von?

  Whenever you're out there.

• 2:09:06Speaker 01

  And shout out to, uh, Alex Brusowitz, who, uh, who we met through.

• 2:09:10Theo Von?

  Yeah. Who, who else on your team's here, man, today?

• 2:09:12Speaker 01

  Uh, we have Joe Osborne.

• 2:09:14Theo Von?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, uh, and we have Danny's whole crew, so Arian and, uh, Clayton. Yeah.

• 2:09:21Theo Von?

  Nice. We'll have to get a group picture, we'll put it up at the end. Uh, thank you, guys. Uh, have a go, man.