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Dalton + MichaelDalton + Michael

Humanity and AI

In this episode of Dalton + Michael, the two discuss why humanity will thrive with AI. The doom and gloom narrative gets a lot of attention but there is another way to look at it. Life is better than it was 100 years ago, and it will get even better. Discussion includes: why AI won't destroy civilization, the origins of the labs, removing meaningless work, why the labs are still hiring, and what founders can do to find a sense of meaning and purpose. Dalton + Michael is brought to you by @Standard_Cap Dalton Caldwell on X: https://x.com/daltonc Michael Seibel on X: https://x.com/mwseibel

Dalton CaldwellhostMichael Seibelhost
Jul 29, 202625mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:11

    Why they won’t do AI doom-and-gloom clickbait

    1. DC

      It would be way easier for us to get on this video and say crazy doom and gloom things

    2. MS

      You're gonna die tomorrow-

    3. DC

      Right?

    4. MS

      Because of AI

    5. DC

      Like we, we could just say really provocative statements-

    6. MS

      Yes

    7. DC

      ... that sound like sci-fi, that sound like The Matrix-

    8. MS

      Yes

    9. DC

      ... and that would surely get more clicks-

    10. MS

      Yes

    11. DC

      ... than us being like, "It's gonna be fine."

    12. MS

      [laughs]

    13. DC

      I'm gonna go separately. It's gonna be great. [upbeat music]

    14. MS

      This is Dalton + Michael, and today we're gonna talk about, controversial topic, why humanity will be great with AI. You heard it here first. [laughs]

    15. DC

      [laughs]

    16. MS

      So, um, I'm sure people watching have consumed the news that, you know, it's this weird kind of human American thing, like we're racing towards advancing AI, which we all know will destroy civilization. [laughs]

    17. DC

      [laughs]

    18. MS

      It's a little confusing, Dalton. [laughs] And so we thought maybe we would make the case on how the world would be a better place for this thing that we are racing towards. What do you think?

    19. DC

      We are all bombarded with messages-

    20. MS

      Yes

    21. DC

      ... about the negative ways that AI is going to hurt us constantly.

    22. MS

      Yes.

  2. 1:11 – 2:37

    How fear shaped AI labs: OpenAI’s origin story and ‘Google will lock it up’

    1. DC

      And maybe to start with, let's talk about the history of the labs, and let's talk about the history of AI, 'cause I think this will help give context to how we ended up here. The reason OpenAI was started was-

    2. MS

      Fear

    3. DC

      ... fear-

    4. MS

      [laughs]

    5. DC

      ... that Google would create a super intelligence-

    6. MS

      Yes

    7. DC

      ... and that it would be locked up inside of Google.

    8. MS

      Yes.

    9. DC

      And it'd be like if Google had, you know, the infinite money glitch-

    10. MS

      [laughs]

    11. DC

      ... and they didn't give it to anyone else.

    12. MS

      Yeah.

    13. DC

      And that would probably be bad for humanity.

    14. MS

      Yes.

    15. DC

      And so the very original pitch for the nonprofit was let's create a nonprofit that is open, hence the name OpenAI-

    16. MS

      Yes

    17. DC

      ... and that the innovations of AI would be shared with humanity.

    18. MS

      Yes.

    19. DC

      It would also be more likely, uh, safe.

    20. MS

      Yes.

    21. DC

      It would be more likely pro-social for humans-

    22. MS

      Yes

    23. DC

      ... if it was done in like a nonprofit consortium-

    24. MS

      Yes

    25. DC

      ... than locked inside of a corporation.

    26. MS

      We all think of AI as almost a consumer product now, but it, I don't think that was, the form factor wasn't understood.

    27. DC

      No.

    28. MS

      So when people were afraid of Google having it, it wasn't even clear that they would give it to be honest.

    29. DC

      Right. Who would they, what would they use it for?

    30. MS

      [laughs] Like it was, it was, that wasn't clear.

  3. 2:37 – 3:20

    Safety culture and the Anthropic split: why ‘AI is dangerous’ became default

    1. DC

      Combine that with a lot of the researchers that worked in this stuff, the-

    2. MS

      Yes

    3. DC

      ... the LessWrong community and all those folks, safety was a key part of the message boards that the researchers creating this stuff were really worried about.

    4. MS

      Yes.

    5. DC

      I'm not saying that's bad, by the way. I'm just saying this infected their brain. This was a huge part of getting into AI, was debating safety-

    6. MS

      Yes

    7. DC

      ... constantly. In addition, um, Anthropic, which ended up being pretty important, when it split off from OpenAI, it was the safety folks who I believe at the time argued that they would be more safe than OpenAI and that OpenAI was not safe enough in their approach. Did I, did I miss anything there?

    8. MS

      That was an explicit argument.

    9. DC

      Yeah.

  4. 3:20 – 4:42

    The media incentive problem: algorithms reward fear over nuance

    1. MS

      And all the news or the vast array of news we consume on AI is filtered through social networks that gets more clicks on negative stories than positive stories.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      So all the original kind of stories were based on fear. All of the way that we consume things, we see more eyeballs based on fear.

    4. DC

      Yep. If you think about the way, um, recommendation algorithms work, [laughs] it is much easier, it would be way easier for us to get on this video and say crazy doom and gloom things

    5. MS

      You're gonna die tomorrow-

    6. DC

      Right?

    7. MS

      Because of AI

    8. DC

      Like we, we could just say really provocative statements-

    9. MS

      Yes

    10. DC

      ... that sound like sci-fi, that sound like The Matrix-

    11. MS

      Yes

    12. DC

      ... and that would surely get more clicks-

    13. MS

      Yes

    14. DC

      ... than us being like, "It's gonna be fine."

    15. MS

      [laughs]

    16. DC

      I'm gonna go separately.

    17. MS

      It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great.

    18. DC

      That, that is such a harder thing, um, to have go viral.

    19. MS

      Yes.

    20. DC

      And so even the, the fundamental algorithms that are recommending content to us are rewarding-

    21. MS

      Yes

    22. DC

      ... clickbaity-

    23. MS

      Yeah

    24. DC

      ... super negative stuff.

    25. MS

      If you're a normal person, this must be so confusing, right?

    26. DC

      Yeah.

    27. MS

      'Cause it's like why are we racing towards the thing that even the creators of the thing think's gonna kill us all?

    28. DC

      Yeah.

    29. MS

      That's gotta be the most confusing thing in the world. Whereas I actually think that the other story a lot of people believe and just nobody talks about.

  5. 4:42 – 5:36

    Misinformation case study: the ‘AI drinks all the water’ meme

    1. DC

      And simple stories that are easy to understand go more viral-

    2. MS

      Yes

    3. DC

      ... like AI is gonna kill us all. One, one example of this is the water thing. I think a huge percentage-

    4. MS

      Oh, my God

    5. DC

      ... of people-

    6. MS

      Ugh

    7. DC

      ... if the topic of AI comes up-

    8. MS

      Fuck

    9. DC

      ... think that, like, the water is-

    10. MS

      AI drinks water.

    11. DC

      [laughs] And if you go and actually, you know, do your own research on this one, the original research had like a, um, numerical error, I believe-

    12. MS

      [laughs]

    13. DC

      ... on how much water was used, and it's like a tiny fraction of how much water, like, golf courses use.

    14. MS

      [laughs]

    15. DC

      And so what, do your own research on this one, but basically somehow if you just talk to normal people-

    16. MS

      Yes

    17. DC

      ... they are convinced that AI is gonna evaporate all the water on Earth-

    18. MS

      Yes

    19. DC

      ... and that they should use, you know, ChatGPT sparingly to save water. [laughs] And so, so again, I'm, we're just setting this up. This is a tricky, um-

    20. MS

      Yes

    21. DC

      ... narrative zone that we're in.

    22. MS

      Yeah. [laughs]

  6. 5:36 – 6:08

    A practical mandate: learn to explain purpose and optimism in an AI future

    1. DC

      Um, and so even though it is harder to articulate a positive view of the future with all of these starting conditions, we're gonna try, and we think you all should too.

    2. MS

      Yes.

    3. DC

      And that I would argue to prepare yourselves, your children, uh, if you're running a company, your company for the future-

    4. MS

      Yes

    5. DC

      ... being able to explain what role and purpose we have in the future and why life matters, and you should be excited about things, is ... completely necessary. [laughs]

  7. 6:08 – 8:26

    Micro benefits: AI as a force multiplier for civic research and parenting creativity

    1. MS

      Yes. I think before getting to the macro, I'd like to start with the micro, right? So with my personal usage of AI, I have been surprised. You know, about a year ago, I started exploring the challenges of the city of San Francisco, and to be honest, without AI, I would've been screwed, right? I had to do effectively years' worth of public policy research to understand our budget, where we spend our money, our health price crisis, like all of these things, and without AI, I would've been stuck.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      I was trying to consume information that no one person had, and so just being able to use AI to do research, to research all of the reporting that the city does, academic reporting, comparative reporting on how other cities deal with drug crises, incredible. The other thing that I was able to do is so much of San Francisco city data is being made available through API online. I'm a business guy. That was useless to me until the last year, and with Claude, suddenly I can see what the city's 311 response time is. I can see how dirty different parts of the city are. I can see which departments are faster or slower. Like, there's so much stuff that I can see to understand what's happening in the city. So for my personal usage, I was just like, well, obviously this is making me more productive. [laughs] Like, it's hard to think that I was a productive person before this. And then watching my kid use AI, you know, I've got a, an, an eighth grader, I'm sorry, eighth grader, an eight-year-old who uses AI, and the amount of creativity, it, it's so weird. Like, in some ways, the amount he's able to explore his imagination, the amount that he's reading, the amount that he's thinking, like he wants to design video games. All kids love designing video games who like video games. He can do it now. And so from a micro perspective, at least in my life, it's like it's so clearly been empowering that like I have to take a step back and basically be like, "All right. Let me separate the narrative from reality. If it's being really empowering in my life and my kid's life, let me maybe search for how it could be empowering for humanity." I don't know. How do you get to this?

  8. 8:26 – 9:59

    From Office Space to meaning: AI could eliminate ‘fake work’ and restore agency

    1. DC

      The way I think about it is the following. Um, I think pop culture reflects back to us, like pretty good-

    2. MS

      Mm-hmm

    3. DC

      ... critiques of what's going on in the world.

    4. MS

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DC

      And if you think about-

    6. MS

      [laughs]

    7. DC

      ... great movies like Office Space-

    8. MS

      Yes. Yes

    9. DC

      ... [laughs] or television shows like The Office-

    10. MS

      Yes

    11. DC

      ... I think if you s- if you think about them-

    12. MS

      [laughs]

    13. DC

      ... what they're poking fun at is people that are just like you and me that have agency-

    14. MS

      Yes

    15. DC

      ... that wanna do good work-

    16. MS

      Yes

    17. DC

      ... and that wanna have purpose and meaning in their lives.

    18. MS

      Yes.

    19. DC

      And they are trapped in an environment-

    20. MS

      Yes

    21. DC

      ... that is stupid and meaningless, and their work has nothing to do with outcomes.

    22. MS

      No.

    23. DC

      And it's just this like, it's literally comedic. It's funny how there is no purpose-

    24. MS

      Yes

    25. DC

      ... [laughs] in the work that they do and their coworkers do.

    26. MS

      Yes.

    27. DC

      Customers don't matter.

    28. MS

      No.

    29. DC

      Their work doesn't matter.

    30. MS

      They have perfectly good brains, and their companies are not using them.

  9. 9:59 – 11:25

    Rebuilding org design: empowering the people closest to the problem

    1. MS

      I would double down on this. You know, in my experience in big companies, the people on the ground who have at least authority of what is built or done often have the most contact with the problem and the customer.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      And we've kind of built companies so the people up here decide what's done, and the people here know what's going on. [laughs]

    4. DC

      [laughs] And like that's-

    5. MS

      That's modern organizational design, and I would say there's probably a good reason for that because the people down here in one reasonable week of work could only do so much. It was relatively hard for them to have a wide set of skills, et cetera, et cetera, so you gotta compartmentalize, and so you have to coordinate, and people are expensive and da, da, da. And so I don't think this organization is dumb. I think it evolved from the best we could do. Now that person on the ground has the capability of a lot more people.

    6. DC

      Yeah.

    7. MS

      To your point, now the person on the ground has a lot more time. I really am excited about how organizations will be built when the people who are closest to the problems have 10X the ability and 10X the time. We shouldn't think that the solutions we have today are good. [laughs]

    8. DC

      [laughs]

    9. MS

      Like, like we don't think the solutions we had 100 years ago were good.

    10. DC

      Yeah.

    11. MS

      100 years from now, they're gonna look at the stuff that we think is solved today, and they're gonna be like, "That was the dark ages." [laughs]

  10. 11:25 – 13:26

    Labs as a window into the near future: tiny teams, fast shipping, real purpose

    1. DC

      I think if a founder were asking me about this in office hours, I think what I would tell them to do is to look to the labs-

    2. MS

      Yeah

    3. DC

      ... as a little window into the future, maybe not the far future, but maybe 12 months, 18 months ahead of us.

    4. MS

      Sure.

    5. DC

      And so let me be specific. How many people that work at the labs have fake email jobs? Maybe more than zero. I don't know, but I'm gonna guess that most people, if you interview them like, "Oh, what do you do at Anthropic?" They're not gonna be like, "Oh, I create PowerPoints."

    6. MS

      Yes. I push paper. [laughs]

    7. DC

      I push paper. Probably there are not a ton of those people-

    8. MS

      No

    9. DC

      ... would be my assumption. Maybe I'm wrong.

    10. MS

      Yeah.

    11. DC

      I'd also would say that the labs keep hiring people, and that when someone is like Dalton, like, "There's not gonna be any jobs, like these companies are all gonna have one employee, and they're gonna be unicorns," I'm like, "Well, maybe, but-

    12. MS

      Ooh

    13. DC

      ... I think the, if the labs keep hiring people- That, that's probably a signal that that's a good idea.

    14. MS

      Yes.

    15. DC

      And my mental model for that is if someone is worth more than their salary, if they generate more revenue or more value for the company than what it costs to pay them, why wouldn't you keep doing that? If you're worried about job loss, it's that you don't think that certain job functions could be done on an incremental basis by humans anymore.

    16. MS

      Yeah, yeah.

    17. DC

      And I don't know, I think that lacks vision [laughs] . Clearly, the labs are, are turning people... So again, to be specific, think about the people that I know being hired at the labs. They're on these tiny teams.

    18. MS

      Yes.

    19. DC

      They're, you know, I know the people working on Codex and other people working on Claude Code, they're on a tiny team, they're talking to users, they're using their own tools, and they're shipping really fast, and they're having a really good time.

    20. MS

      Yes.

    21. DC

      And they certainly have a lot of purpose.

    22. MS

      Yes.

    23. DC

      And we could argue perhaps too much, but they all-

    24. MS

      [laughs]

    25. DC

      Just kidding. I'm just saying they all feel like they're on a mission.

    26. MS

      Yes.

    27. DC

      And so they're so fired up-

    28. MS

      Yes

    29. DC

      ... they're working so hard, and they can understand how their personal effort is helping the company and helping the users. And I would argue that is a perfect blueprint for what every company should be th- should be doing or thinking, right?

  11. 13:26 – 15:23

    Incumbents vs AI-native companies: pushing responsibility down vs top-down control

    1. MS

      Well, and I think this is what's so interesting about startups and about companies that are built from the ground up with AI, is because you can imagine that. Y- you don't even have to imagine it. Like, that is what will organically happen if you believe in AI and you're starting a new company. I think this also represents the challenge in talking to existing companies, right? You know, if I'm trying to pitch AI to a bunch of MBAs that run a large company, and I'm trying to say, like, "Imagine a world where you can have a hundreds of small autonomous teams that can make massive impact," that sounds scary as shit.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      Whereas if I say to them, "Imagine a world where we can fire half your employees," they're like, "Well, stock price, this, that-"

    4. DC

      Yeah

    5. MS

      ... "da, da, da, da." I think the companies that embrace these new ways of organization, that embrace pushing responsibility down-

    6. DC

      Yeah

    7. MS

      ... are gonna thrive. But like we've seen with every tech transformation, some dinosaurs have to die.

    8. DC

      Well, and as we're recording this, um, it recently came out that Meta apologized to their employees for dehumanizing them and going so nuts into AI.

    9. MS

      In a top-down way.

    10. DC

      In a top-down way. And so the difference between labs hiring people and giving them-

    11. MS

      Responsibility and resources [laughs]

    12. DC

      ... is very different than like, "Hey, cool, you work at Meta. Um-

    13. MS

      [laughs]

    14. DC

      ... install this spyware on your computer so we can track your click stream, and now you're on the data labeling team." Not great. And so again, I, I would argue institutions of the future are going to find a way to translate their employees' jobs into giving them meaning, into giving them purpose-

    15. MS

      Yes

    16. DC

      ... into giving them agency-

    17. MS

      Yes

    18. DC

      ... um, along with the tools to do so, and the people that do that are gonna win. [laughs]

  12. 15:23 – 16:58

    Managers need AI too: using AI to see ground truth and enable delegation

    1. MS

      Well, and, and I think the big companies that have fear right now, it's like so silly because I understand how you would have fear in a large company where to get information from the ground up, it has to go through eight people's hands, and it's gonna get, the, the, the turd will be shined-

    2. DC

      [laughs]

    3. MS

      ... over and over again, right? So you can't really trust the information you're getting, right? But if you're an executive, especially inside of a tech company, you can use AI now to get ground information.

    4. DC

      Yeah.

    5. MS

      Right? Like, you have access to your own databa- like you have access to raw customer data. You can monitor what's happening in your company in a way that should give you the confidence to push responsibility down, and like you just have to learn how to use the tools, you know? And, and it was funny, as I was talking to somebody who was at a large t- tech company, and this company was going through a like, "Oh, we need to get all of our employees using AI," and he said something really interesting to me. He's like, "It's probably more important to get the managers using AI than employees."

    6. DC

      Hmm.

    7. MS

      "Because once the managers realize how much the organization can change if they're using AI, like that's when you're gonna actually see the real change, right? If that manager is not AI pilled-

    8. DC

      Yeah

    9. MS

      ... it almost doesn't matter that their employees are." And I was like, huh, I don't see any company advertising how much does our senior team-

    10. DC

      [laughs]

    11. MS

      ... use AI, right? Right? No, but we're the... That's not-

    12. DC

      Yeah

    13. MS

      ... for us, right? How is it gonna help us? It's gonna help the employees, right? [laughs]

    14. DC

      You know, a little bit of what this reminds me of, I, I forget if I've talked about this one in our videos before.

  13. 16:58 – 19:05

    Narratives that attract talent: plumbing, private equity, and making work legible

    1. MS

      Mm-hmm.

    2. DC

      But there was a blog post from a writer at Bloomberg a few years ago that stuck in my brain for years, and he talked about how a lot of businesses in the world could use really bright people to run them-

    3. MS

      Yeah

    4. DC

      ... and that there's actually a lack of talent to run certain businesses where the owners are retiring.

    5. MS

      Yes.

    6. DC

      So the example this writer used was plumbing businesses.

    7. MS

      Oh, great, yeah.

    8. DC

      You know, there's all these plumbing businesses, the owner needs to sell them, the owner needs to retire, and it's pretty hard to go to the Harvard campus and be like-

    9. MS

      "Do you wanna do this?"

    10. DC

      ... "Do you wanna go?" And so his argument is that what private equity is is a whitewashing-

    11. MS

      Oh

    12. DC

      ... to put, um, to say like, "Oh, do you want a job in private equity?" And you're like, "Of course, I want it."

    13. MS

      You can do a plumbing roll-up. [laughs]

    14. DC

      And, and that a lot of the actual jobs-

    15. MS

      [laughs]

    16. DC

      ... like what you actually do when you go work in private equity is often to work on plumbing companies.

    17. MS

      [laughs] On traditional businesses, yeah.

    18. DC

      And that, um, making a job in plumbing legible to-

    19. MS

      Hmm

    20. DC

      ... super smart people is actually the function in society-

    21. MS

      That's interesting

    22. DC

      ... that private equity firms are producing.

    23. MS

      I love that because you know what? We still need fucking plumbers. [laughs]

    24. DC

      It's actually really important.

    25. MS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    26. DC

      And so, so again, where I'm going with this is that the narrative matters so much.

    27. MS

      Yes.

    28. DC

      And that if an organization wants to attract top talent and have that talent feel this is worthy of their time-

    29. MS

      Hmm

    30. DC

      ... you have to be- Make it legible to them. You have to give them-

  14. 19:05 – 21:53

    AI as the next ‘science helps’ wave: health, safety, and more time for meaning

    1. MS

      Yes. To wrap this up, if we look back, I, uh, Neil deGrasse Tyson said something that really was funny. He was, like, doing some video on how, like, science actually helps.

    2. DC

      Mm-hmm.

    3. MS

      And he was like, "You know, humanity for thousands and thousands of years, like, our, um, lifespan did not increase. And then, like, in the last 150 years it's increased a lot, and that was science." And like, you're told all these things like plastic or, like, the new agriculture, like, all these things are killing you, but like, objectively [both laughing] like lifespans increased as these things were invented. Science helps. What do you think is the world our kids or grandkids might live in that was made better by AI? Like, what are some of the things that we take for granted right now that our kids or grandkids are gonna be like, "I can't believe-"

    4. DC

      Yeah

    5. MS

      ... "that was cool"? [laughs]

    6. DC

      Well, I mean, to start with healthcare alone and lifespan-

    7. MS

      Yes

    8. DC

      ... and solving cancer and heart disease, I mean, that's already happening and will only increase-

    9. MS

      Yes

    10. DC

      ... of, you know, producing new drugs and new interventions that-

    11. MS

      How many diseases do we live with today as fait accompli-

    12. DC

      Yeah

    13. MS

      ... are gonna, people are gonna look back and be like-

    14. DC

      100%

    15. MS

      ... "That's weird." [laughs] How about car fatalities?

    16. DC

      Yes.

    17. MS

      Like, there will be a moment when-

    18. DC

      It, it's barbaric how many people die right now-

    19. MS

      [laughs]

    20. DC

      ... in car accidents. It's horrible.

    21. MS

      I remember I used to commute in New York City, and it was just like there is a fatal accident every day.

    22. DC

      Yeah.

    23. MS

      And it's on the news, but not, like, as a tragedy, as, like, here's how the traffic [laughs]

    24. DC

      Yeah

    25. MS

      ... as like, [laughs] here's, here's which highway to take to avoid it. That's gonna seem barbaric.

    26. DC

      I think the bar is going to be raised on finding meaning in life, and I think people are gonna have more time and tools to find meaning in what they're doing-

    27. MS

      Yes

    28. DC

      ... and to feel like they have the mind space to be creative. Again, if you look at humanity, humans used to have to be, like, farming until the sun went down if you-

    29. MS

      Yep.

    30. DC

      [laughs] There was not a lot of time to do stuff-

  15. 21:53 – 24:31

    Escaping pessimism: Factfulness, skepticism of ‘ulterior motives,’ and a utilitarian takeaway

    1. DC

      I, actually, you know what? I think the pushback would be authority figures, people that would go and make a video about a topic like this-

    2. MS

      Yes

    3. DC

      ... have some deep ulterior motive and agenda of trying to screw people. Like, I think people have this-

    4. MS

      Mm.

    5. DC

      It, you know, somehow every new thing that's gonna come out is somehow gonna screw them. I, somehow that's just baked into people's minds.

    6. MS

      I'm trying to i- let's say we're the authority figures here for a moment.

    7. DC

      Yeah, yeah. We're try-

    8. MS

      For the purpose

    9. DC

      ... somehow we're putting out messages that are like we have some devious, uh, intention.

    10. MS

      Oh, I have to think hard-

    11. DC

      That's what they would say

    12. MS

      ... in another video we will describe. [laughs]

    13. DC

      [laughs]

    14. MS

      We have to think hard about our devious intent.

    15. DC

      Yeah.

    16. MS

      It's, it's-

    17. DC

      But I'm just trying to say, like, when new stuff comes out-

    18. MS

      Yeah

    19. DC

      ... it's like, oh, they're not really telling you, you know, big, big oil is behind this. There, there's some ulterior motive.

    20. MS

      And, and, and I just hate this 'cause it, it kinda, it comes back to this narrative that pains me that I think is somehow an American narrative, that, like, things are getting worse when they're actually getting better.

    21. DC

      Yep.

    22. MS

      And it's, it's, I might have brought this up before. There's a book called Factfulness, and in the beginning of this book there's, like, this 10 or 20 question quiz, and the whole funny part about this quiz is that the author tells you before he gives you the quiz that you will guess pessimistically on all of these questions. And the questions like the average education level of yada, yada, or, you know, the accessibility of electricity, yada. They're all these kind of, like, population global, like, how we're doing questions. And the, he gives you the answer. He's like, "You're gonna guess pessimistic, so whenever you pick an answer, just, like, make, pick more optimistic." And still the vast majority of people underestimate how good the world's doing right now.

    23. DC

      Yeah.

    24. MS

      And so I think our kids and grandkids are gonna look back at this hysteria with a little bit of laughter, but also a little bit of sadness, and they're gonna be like, "These backwards people." [laughs] Like they-

    25. DC

      They were getting all this good stuff, and they were convinced it was a trick.

    26. MS

      Yeah. They thought, like, you know, it'd be like us being, like, people who are afraid of electricity. It's like, what are you doing? [laughs] Like, we need that.

    27. DC

      [laughs]

    28. MS

      Can we get like... I will say this. If you're watching this video and, and you're just trying to be utilitarian about it, having a positive view on AI is certainly gonna help you more-

    29. DC

      Yes

    30. MS

      ... because you're gonna learn how to use it, you're gonna learn how to thrive with it, and you're gonna be around people who might not be.

  16. 24:31 – 25:36

    Closing challenge: build your own optimistic AI story by using it on real problems

    1. DC

      I would just challenge everyone in your own life to articulate why you're excited [laughs] and optimistic about how these changes are going to help you to help the next generations and help make that a reality.

    2. MS

      Yes. Yes.

    3. DC

      You know? I-

    4. MS

      And I, I would say don't take a one-off experience with AI a year ago and make it your entire experience with AI, right? Like, understand this is changing. For any of you who are kind of as old as us, like, the internet got a lot better in the '90s, and then it got a lot better in the 2000s [laughs] and, like, if you just took a snapshot of the internet in 1995 and you're like, "That's internet," you're kinda missing-

    5. DC

      Yep

    6. MS

      ... the boat here. And so I actually think one way to get really positive about AI is to use it to solve a problem in your own life, and, like, you might be shocked, [laughs] um, how good it can be.

    7. DC

      Cool.

    8. MS

      Cheers.

    9. DC

      All right. Thanks, Michael. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 25:37

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