No Mercy / No Malice: Assist.AI

As read by George Hahn. https://www.profgalloway.com/AiLONE/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

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• 0:48Speaker 01

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• 1:19Scott Galloway?

  I'm Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice. Decades of overpromises about digital assistance might finally be coming to fruition. But the most important life skills, forming and nurturing relationships, and learning from rejection are forged, not taught. Assist.ai, as read by George Hahn.

• 1:48George Hahn?

  I run two organizations. ProfG Media is a, wait for it, media company that produces books, videos, podcasts, TV shows, talks, and this newsletter.

• 2:01George Hahn?

  The second organization is the aircraft carrier squadron that runs my life outside of work. The tutors, trainers, accountants, landscapers, financial planners, lawyers, nannies, health aides for my dad, dog walkers, and other professionals whose job is to make my life nicer and easier. Think Downton Abbey, except the Abbey is a Merrill Bone apartment and the patriarch is much less charming. The chatter about AI has focused on how it will first change organization, the world of work, and/or annihilate us.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Which jobs is AI coming after first?

• 2:43Speaker 04

  CEO Sundar Pichai told us AI will be as good or as evil as human nature allows.

• 2:50Speaker 05

  Should we allow AI machines to flood the internet with propaganda and fake news?

• 2:54George Hahn?

  But the most valuable tech companies to date, with the exception of Microsoft, have been consumer-facing. And it's likely the major AI disruptors will, again, be consumer offerings. One big change: the butlers, maids, and valets of the rich will be introduced to the broader world. Instead of servants downstairs, we'll have servers. Except the servers will be housed in some nondescript tilt-up building next to an inexpensive source of energy to keep it cool, where they'll sweat plowing the fields of my indulgent life, where I've created a series of mazes I need others to help me navigate. Note: I'm especially proud of the previous sentence.

• 3:38George Hahn?

  Generative AI and smartphones and smart speakers promise the power of personal and professional assistance to everyone with an iPhone. That's good news, mostly. Technology democratizes access, good thing, but also sequesters us from one another. The tech elite are opting out voluntarily with a nihilistic vision of go-bags and bunkers. The backstory is that the performance of digital assistance might be finally catching up to the decades of promise. Emphasis on "might." MIT had a chatbot called Eliza in 1966.

• 4:19Speaker 06

  ...computer program that anyone can converse with via the keyboard, and it'll reply on the screen. We've added human speech to make the conversation more clear.

• 4:27George Hahn?

  And the progress has been steady, if not remarkable. Sixty years later, we started to lose interest. The number of Americans who use voice-activated assistants declined. That's about to change. We're on the eve of war. The AI assistant revolution. The invading AI army established a beachhead years ago. Remember paper maps? Until recently, successes were limited to AI-friendly contexts. Those with a lot of structured data, limited and predictable queries, and not much nuance. Pre-chat GPT, our AI assistants were kids.

• 5:10George Hahn?

  They took everything literally and needed to be set up for success. The real innovation unleashed by large language models is soft skills. Specifically, their ability to manage the ambiguity of human experience. Intelligence is synonymous with nuance, or the ability to recognize and deliver it. Google describes its AI mission. Quote, "More than answers, we'll help you when there's no right answer."

• 5:42George Hahn?

  The hardest decisions in life are having to choose between the bad options rife in a difficult environment. Bear markets and bad relationships require intelligence, i.e. nuance. Bull markets and good relationships only require bravado and presence. We've learned painfully that converting any asset or substance to another for economic benefit produces externalities. Fossil fuels to energy produces carbon. Plant calories to meat calories results in deforestation and methane. The worst are the rage emissions spewed into our environment as big tech converts attention to ads.

• 6:27George Hahn?

  The externality, when we convert the patterns between words to information and insight, i.e. AI, A, dehumanization.

• 6:38George Hahn?

  The people who invented AI, now that their options have vested, are full-time catastrophists.

• 6:44Speaker 07

  The man widely seen as the godfather of artificial intelligence has quit his job at Google, warning of the dangers of AI.

• 6:51Speaker 06

  It'll figure out ways of manipulating people to do what it wants.

• 6:54Speaker 08

  There's like a set of very bad outcomes. One thing I'm particularly worried about is that these models could be used for large-scale disinformation.

• 7:03George Hahn?

  But they're hyping the wrong catastrophe. I'm less worried about Skynet declaring war on the species or being turned into a paperclip than an epidemic that causes more death, disease, and disability than COVID-19. Loneliness.

• 7:20George Hahn?

  The US faces an epidemic of isolation. Loneliness among young adults has been increasing since 1976. The increase has been steeper among those with lower incomes. Teen depression would be at similar levels, given its trajectory with or without the pandemic. Put another way, COVID didn't inspire social distancing. Social media did. A more honest moniker for the sector is "asocial media." Studies find that when people reduce or eliminate social media from their lives, their self-esteem and sense of connection often improve. AI-driven assistance present a similar risk.

• 8:04George Hahn?

  According to the US Surgeon General, an impressive man who makes you feel good about America, quote, "Evidence across scientific disciplines converges on the conclusion that socially connected people live longer." Unquote. Social isolation is associated with a 29% increase in the risk of heart disease and a 32% increase in the risk of stroke. Put another way, loneliness kills.

• 8:37George Hahn?

  A reliable indicator of how much a new tech product will drive us apart is the intensity of the founders' promise to bring us together. Facebook's mission statement has become less recognizable than an 80s pop star's face, but the Zuck and Sheryl promised repeatedly they would "connect people."

• 8:57Speaker 09

  So our new mission is to bring the world closer together. And for the last decade, our mission has been to make the world more open and connected. And we've been really focused on these ideas.

• 9:07Speaker 10

  Do we believe in a world where technology can help you feel close to someone even when you're far apart?

• 9:13George Hahn?

  They then built algorithms that send images of nooses and razor blades to 14-year-old girls experiencing suicidal ideation. Tinder aims to spark relationships, but increasingly results in sadness and anxiety. We are then told that the solution to tech's externalities is "more tech." On cue, Tinder's former CEO is raising venture capital for an AI-powered relationship coach called AmorI that will offer advice to young adults struggling with loneliness.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  We at the AmorI team help you get regular dates by assisting you with the entire process. You know, all that frustrating swiping, texting, matching. We do it all for you.

• 9:59George Hahn?

  She won't be alone. Call Annie is an AI friend you can phone or FaceTime to ask anything you want.

• 10:06Speaker 11

  Hi Annie, what's the meaning of life? Hey there. That's a big question, isn't it? I believe that the meaning of life...

• 10:13George Hahn?

  A similar product, Replica, has millions of users. AI sex robot vendors saw sales increase 50% during the pandemic, and sex tech is expected to become a $53 billion industry by 2026. So, Natalie 2.0, a sex doll, should make the same as Beyoncé and Tom Cruise, as the industry she works for will approximate the scale of the combined global music and movie businesses.

• 10:45George Hahn?

  We've seen this movie before, literally. It was called "Her." A lonely introvert in the midst of divorce purchases an advanced AI assistant that helps him with everything, from therapy to cooking to setting him up on dates, and they fall in love.

• 11:01Speaker 12

  You have a lot of contacts.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  I'm very popular.

• 11:04Speaker 12

  Really? Does this mean you actually have friends?

• 11:09Speaker 04

  You just know me so well already.

• 11:11George Hahn?

  Also, "Ex Machina," another great film about the collusion of tech and loneliness.

• 11:16Speaker 13

  I'm pleased to meet you, Ava.

• 11:19Speaker 14

  I'm pleased to meet you too.

• 11:22George Hahn?

  What sci-fi gets right and the innovator class papers over with earnest TED Talks on bettering the world is that human connection is why we're all here. And inserting AI between ourselves and those around us dulls those connections. Sex bots are a sure thing, and AI assistants are inexpensive and don't need vision and dental. Also, they are not real and don't nourish our soul. We're not wired to live in a world where we have friends but don't experience friendship. Human relationships are about competition and compromise, about listening and bouncing

• 12:03George Hahn?

  off one another in unexpected ways, in person. They are about, among many things, the risk inherent in relationships. These risks include disappointment and rejection. Rejection has been key to my success, specifically my willingness to endure it. In high school, I ran for sophomore, junior, senior class president. Lost all three times. Based on my track record, I decided it made sense to run for student body president, and I, wait for it, lost. I asked four girls to my high school prom and didn't go.

• 12:47George Hahn?

  Oh for four. Note: I did get asked to the prom by a girl from another school.

• 12:56George Hahn?

  I have raised over $1 billion for my startups and investments. However, I pitched conservatively $100 billion in capital over the better part of a decade before raising a dollar. I was rejected initially by UCLA, but here's the thing. I recovered. More than recovered. I got stronger. And that made the victories feel more victorious. 20 years ago, under the glare of the midday sun, I approached a woman at the Raleigh Hotel pool who was sitting with two friends. I was so attracted to her, I decided it was worth the risk of rejection.

• 13:41George Hahn?

  I'd learned that the downside doesn't present that much downside. It's risk. It's growth. It's life. AI assistants are the ultimate helicopter parent, bulldozing obstacles and the risk inherent in establishing new relationships. We are breeding a generation of asocial people who don't know what it means to be rejected, forget a name, miss a flight, and find unexpected joy. AI and mobile technology have stripped mined a key component of what it means to be human, what it means to be a mammal.

• 14:21George Hahn?

  Happiness is a function of your willingness to take an uncomfortable risk and have something wonderful, really wonderful, happen in person. Technology offers productivity and prosperity. However, joy is in the agency of others. The most important skills are forged, not taught. My oldest son's middle name, Raleigh. Life is so rich.

• 15:06Speaker 13

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• 15:36Speaker 15

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• 15:45Speaker 14

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