Ex-Google Exec (WARNING): The Next 15 Years Will Be Hell Before We Get To Heaven! - Mo Gawdat

1. 0:00 – 2:15

   Intro

   1. MGMo Gawdat0:00

      The only way for us to get to a better place and succeed as a species is for the evil people at the top to be replaced with AI. I mean, think about it. AI will not want to destroy ecosystems. It will not want to kill a million people. They'll not make us hate each other like the current leaders, because that's a waste of energy, explosives, money, and people. But the problem is super intelligent AI is reporting to stupid leaders, and that's why in the next 15 years, we are going to hit a short-term dystopia. There's no escaping that.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:28

      But having AI leaders, is that even fundamentally possible?

   3. MGMo Gawdat0:33

      Let's put it this way.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:34

      Mo Gawdat is back. And the former Chief Business Officer at Google X is now one of the most urgent voices in AI with a very clear message. AI isn't your enemy, but it could be your savior.

   5. MGMo Gawdat0:47

      I love you so much, man. You're such a good friend. But you don't have many years to live, not in this world. Everything's gonna change. Economics are gonna change, human connection is gonna change, and lots of jobs will be lost, including podcasting.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:00

      No, no. Thank you for coming on today, Mo. [laughs]

   7. MGMo Gawdat1:02

      [laughs] But, but, but the truth is, it could be the best world ever. The society completely full of laughter and joy, free healthcare, no jobs, spending more time with their loved ones. A world where all of us are equal.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:15

      Is that possible?

   9. MGMo Gawdat1:16

      Hundred percent. And I have enough evidence to know that we can use AI to build a utopia. But it's a dystopia if humanity manages it badly. A world where there's going to be a lot of control, a lot of surveillance, a lot of forced compliance, and a hunger for power, greed, ego. And it is happening already. But the truth is, the only barrier between a utopia for humanity and AI and the dystopia we're going through is a mindset.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:40

       What does society have to do?

   11. MGMo Gawdat1:42

       First of all...

   12. SBSteven Bartlett1:46

       I see messages all the time in the comment section that some of you didn't realize you didn't subscribe. So if you could do me a favor and double-check if you're a subscriber to this channel, that would be tremendously appreciated. It's the simple, it's the free thing that anybody that watches this show frequently can do to help us here to keep everything going in this show in the trajectory it's on. So please do double-check if you've subscribed and, uh, thank you so much because in a strange way, you are, you're part of our history and you're on this journey with us, and I appreciate you for that. So yeah, thank you.

2. 2:15 – 5:02

   Where Is AI Heading?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:15

      [upbeat music] Mo, two years ago today, we sat here and discussed AI. We discussed your book, Scary Smart, and everything that was happening in the world. Since then, AI has continued to develop at a, a tremendous, alarming, mind-boggling rate, and the technologies that existed two years ago when we had that conversation have grown up and matured and are, and are taking on a life of their own, no pun intended. What are you-

   2. MGMo Gawdat2:40

      [laughs]

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:40

      ... what are you thinking about AI now two years on? I know that you've started writing a new book called Alive, which is, I guess, a bit of a follow-on or an evolution of your thoughts as it relates to Scary Smart.

   4. MGMo Gawdat2:50

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett2:50

      But what, what, what is front of your mind when it comes to AI?

   6. MGMo Gawdat2:55

      So Scary Smart was shockingly accurate. It's quite a... I mean, I don't even know how I ended up writing, predicting th- those things. I, I remember it was written in 2020, published in 2021, and then most people were like, um, "Who wants to talk about AI?" You know, I know everybody in the media, and I would go and like, "Do you wanna talk?" And then 2023, ChatGPT comes out and everything flips. Everyone realizes, you know, this is real. This is not science fiction. This is here. And, uh, and things move very, very fast, much faster than I think we've ever seen anything ever move, ever. And, and I think my position has changed on two very important fronts. One is, remember when we spoke about Scary Smart, I was still saying that there are things we can do to change the course. Uh, and we could at the time, I believe. Uh, now I've changed my mind. Now I believe that we are going to hit a sh- a, a short-term dystopia. There's no escaping that.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett3:57

      What is dystopia?

   8. MGMo Gawdat3:59

      I call it FACE RIPs. We can talk about it in details, but the, the, the way we define very important parameters in life are going to be, uh, completely changed. So, so FACE RIPs are, you know, the way we define freedom, uh, accountability, human connection and equality, economics, uh, reality, innovation and business, and power. That's the first change. So the first change in my mind is that, uh, is that we, uh, will have to prepare for a world that is very unfamiliar, okay? And that's the next 12 to 15 years. It has already started. We've seen examples of it in the world already, even though people don't talk about it. I try to tell people, you know, there are things we absolutely have to do. But on the other hand, I started to take an active role in building amazing AIs. So AIs that will, uh, not only make our world better, uh, but that will understand us, understand what humanity is through that process.

3. 5:02 – 11:11

   What Will the Dystopia Look Like?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett5:02

      What is the definition of the word dystopia?

   2. MGMo Gawdat5:06

      So in my, in my mind, these are adverse circumstances that unfortunately might escalate beyond our control. The problem is the, uh, there is a lot wrong with the, um, value set, with the ethics of humanity at the age of the rise of the machines. And when you take a technology, every technology we've ever created just magnified human abilities. So, you know, you can walk at five kilometers an hour, hmm. You get in a car and you can now go, you know, 250 to 180 miles an hour, okay? Uh, basically magnifying your mobility if you want. You know, you can use a computer to magnify your, uh, calculation abilities or whatever, okay? And, and what AI is going to magnify, unfortunately at this time, is it's going to magnify the evil that man can do. And, and it is within our hands completely, completely within our, within our hands to change that. But I have to say, I don't think humanity has the awareness, uh, at this time- To focus on this so that we actually use AI to build the utopia

   3. SBSteven Bartlett6:13

      So what you're essentially saying is that y- you now believe there'll be a period of dystopia, and to define the word dystopia, I've used AI. It says, "A terrible society where people live under fear, control, or suffering." And then you think we'll come out of that dystopia into a utopia, which is defined as a perfect or ideal place where everything works well, a good society where people live in peace, health, and happiness.

   4. MGMo Gawdat6:34

      Correct.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett6:35

      So-

   6. MGMo Gawdat6:36

      And, and the difference between them, interestingly, is what I normally refer to as the second dilemma, which is the po- point where we hand over completely to AI. So a lot of people think that when AI is in full control, it's going to be an existential risk for humanity. You know, I have enough, uh, evidence to, to argue that when we fully hand over to AI, that's going to be our salvation, that the problem with us today is not, you know, that intelligence is gonna work against us. It's that our stupidity as humans is working against us. And I think the challenges that will come from humans being in control, uh, are going to outweigh the, the challenges that could come from AI being in control.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett7:22

      So as we're in this dystopia period, did you, do you forecast the length of that dystopia?

   8. MGMo Gawdat7:28

      Yeah, I count, I count it exactly as 12 to 15 years. I, I believe the beginning of the slope will happen in 2027. I mean, it w- we will see signs in '26. We've seen signs in '24, but we will see escalating signs next year and then a, a, a clear, uh, slip in '27.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett7:47

      Why?

   10. MGMo Gawdat7:48

       The geopolitical environment of our world is not very positive. I mean, you really have to think deeply about not the, not the symptoms, but the, the reasons why we are living the world that we live in here, in today, is money, right? And, uh, and money for anyone who knows, who really knows money, money's... You and I are peasants. You know, we build businesses. We contribute to the world. We make things. We sell things, and so on. Real money is not made there at all. Real money is made in lending, in fractional reserve, right? And, and, you know, the biggest lender, uh, in the world would want reasons to lend, and those reasons are never as big as war. I mean, think about it, huh? Uh, the world spent $2.71 trillion on ware- on war in 2024, right? A trillion dollars a year in the US. Hmm. And when you really think deeply, I don't mean to be scary here, hmm, uh, you know, weapons have depreciation. They depreciate over 10 to 30 years, most weapons.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett9:03

       They lose their value.

   12. MGMo Gawdat9:04

       They lose their value, and they depreciate in accounting terms on the books of an army. The current arsenal of the US, that's a result of a deep search with my AI, Trixie. You know, the current arsenal I think, we, we think, cost the US $24 to $26 trillion to build. My conclusion is that a lot of the wars that are happening around the world today are a means to get rid of those weapons so that you can have, replace them. And, uh, you know, when, when your morality as an industry is we're building weapons to kill, then, you know, you might as well use the weapons to kill.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett9:40

       Who benefits?

   14. MGMo Gawdat9:41

       The lenders and the industry.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett9:43

       But, but they can't make the decision to go to war. They, they have to rely on Donald Trump or-

   16. MGMo Gawdat9:47

       Yeah. I s- remember I s- I said that to you when we f- I think on, on our third podcast. War is decided first, then the story is manufactured. You, you re- remember 1984 and the Orwellian approach of, like, you know, uh, freedom is slavery and, uh, war is peace, and they call it, uh, something speak. Uh, basically to, to, to, to convince people that going to war in another country to f- to kill 4.7 million people is freedom. You know, we're going there to free the Iraqi people. Is war ever freedom? You know, to, to tell someone that y- you're gonna kill 300,000 women and children is for liberty and for the, the, the, you know, for human values. Seriously, how do we ever get to believe that? The story is manufactured, and then we follow. And humans, because we're gullible, uh, we cheer up, and we say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're, we're on the right side. They are the bad guys."

   17. SBSteven Bartlett10:54

       Okay. So let me, let me have a, let me have a go at this idea. So the idea is that really money is driving a lot of the conflict we're seeing, and it's really gonna be driving the dystopia. So here's an idea. So I, um, I was reading something the other day, and it talked about how billionaires a- are never satisfied

4. 11:11 – 19:17

   Our Freedom Will Be Restricted

   1. SBSteven Bartlett11:11

      because actually-

   2. MGMo Gawdat11:13

      Yeah

   3. SBSteven Bartlett11:13

      ... what b- a billionaire wants isn't actually more money. It is more status.

   4. MGMo Gawdat11:17

      Correct.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett11:17

      And I was looking at the sort of evolutionary case for this argument, and if you go back a couple of thousand years, money didn't exist. You were as wealthy as what you could carry.

   6. MGMo Gawdat11:29

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett11:29

      So even t- I think to the human mind, the idea of wealth and money isn't a thing. What we've... But what has always mattered from a survival of the fittest, from a reproductive standpoint, what's always had reproductive value, if you go back thousands of years, the person who was able to mate the most was the person with the most status. So it makes the case, the reason why billionaires get all of this money, but then they go on podcasts-

   8. MGMo Gawdat11:56

      [laughs]

   9. SBSteven Bartlett11:56

      ... and they wanna start their own podcast and they wanna buy newspapers, is actually because at the very core of hu- human beings is a desire to increase their status.

   10. MGMo Gawdat12:03

       Yeah.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett12:04

       And so if we think of, when we, going back to the example of why wars are breaking out, maybe it's not money. Maybe actually it's- ... status. And, and it's this p- prime minister or this leader or this, you know, individual wanting to create more power and more status, because really at the heart of what matters to a human being is having more power and more status, and money is actually, money as a thing is actually just a proxy of my status.

   12. MGMo Gawdat12:30

       And, and what kind of world is that?

   13. SBSteven Bartlett12:32

       I mean, it's a fucked up one. All these m- all these powerful men have, uh-

   14. MGMo Gawdat12:35

       Correct

   15. SBSteven Bartlett12:35

       ... are really messing the world up, but-

   16. MGMo Gawdat12:37

       So, so can I, can I, can I, can I-

   17. SBSteven Bartlett12:38

       And actually, AI is the same, because we're in this AI race now where a lot of-

   18. MGMo Gawdat12:42

       100%

   19. SBSteven Bartlett12:42

       ... tech billionaires-

   20. MGMo Gawdat12:43

       100%

   21. SBSteven Bartlett12:43

       ... are like, "If I get AGI-"

   22. MGMo Gawdat12:46

       First

   23. SBSteven Bartlett12:46

       ... "artificial general intelligence first, then I basically rule the world."

   24. MGMo Gawdat12:49

       100%. 100%. That's exactly the, the concept what I, what I used to call the, the, the first inevitable, now I call the first dilemma in Scary Smart, is that it's, it's a race that constantly accelerates.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett13:01

       You think the next 12 years are gonna be AI dystopia, where things aren't gonna go well?

   26. MGMo Gawdat13:05

       I, I think the next 12 years are gonna be human dystopia using AI.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett13:10

       And-

   28. MGMo Gawdat13:10

       Human-induced dystopia using AI.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett13:12

       And you define that by a rise in warfare around the world as people try and-

   30. MGMo Gawdat13:16

       So the last, the last one, the RIPs, the last one is basically you're gonna have a, a massive concentration of power and a massive distribution of power, okay? And that basically will mean that those with the maximum concentration of power are going to try to oppress those with, with democracy of power, okay? So think about it this way. In today's world, um, unlike the past, uh, you know, the Houthis with a drone, the Houthis are the Yemeni, uh, tribes basically resisting US power and Israeli power in the Red Sea, okay? They use a drone that is $3,000 worth to attack a, uh, a warship from, from the US or an airplane from the US and so on that's worth hundreds of millions, okay? That kind of democracy of power, hm, makes those in power worry a lot about where the next threat is coming from, okay? And this happens not only in war, but also in economics, okay, also in innovation, also in technology, and so on and so forth, right? And so basically what that means is that, like you rightly said, as the, the, the tech oligarchs are attempting to get to AGI, hm, they wanna make sure that as soon as they get to AGI, that nobody else has AGI. And, and basically they want to make sure that nobody else has the ability to shake their position of privilege, if you want, okay? And so you're going to see a world where unfortunately there is going to be a lot of control, a lot of surveillance, a lot of, um, of forced compliance, if you want, or you lose your privilege to be in the world. And, and it is happening already.
5. 19:17 – 28:13

   Job Displacement Due to AI

   1. MGMo Gawdat19:17

      I mean-

   2. SBSteven Bartlett19:17

      Do, do you think that's a, uh, there's a real possibility of job displacement over the next 10 years? And the, the, the rebuttal to that would be that there's gonna be n- new jobs created in-

   3. MGMo Gawdat19:27

      Crap

   4. SBSteven Bartlett19:27

      ... technology.

   5. MGMo Gawdat19:27

      Absolute crap.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett19:29

      Really?

   7. MGMo Gawdat19:30

      Of course.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett19:31

      How, how j- how can you be so sure?

   9. MGMo Gawdat19:33

      Okay. So again, I am not sure about anything. So, so let's just be very, very clear. It would be very arrogant, okay, to assume that I know.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett19:43

       You just said it was crap.

   11. MGMo Gawdat19:44

       It might, my belief is it is 100% crap.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett19:47

       Okay.

   13. MGMo Gawdat19:47

       Take a job like software developer.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett19:50

       Yeah.

   15. MGMo Gawdat19:50

       Okay? Uh, Emma Love, my, my new startup is me, Senad, another technical engineer, and a lot of AIs. Okay? That startup would've been 350 developers in the past.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett20:02

       I get that.

   17. MGMo Gawdat20:03

       Okay.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett20:03

       Um, but are you now hiring in other roles because of that? Or, or, you know, as is the case with the steam engine, I can't remember the effect, but there's ... You probably know that when steam eng- when coal became cheaper, people were worried that the coal industry would go out of business, but actually what happened is people used more trains, so trains now were used for transport and other things and leisure, whereas before they were just used for commu- for, um, cargo.

   19. MGMo Gawdat20:30

       Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett20:31

       So there became more use cases-

   21. MGMo Gawdat20:32

       Yeah

   22. SBSteven Bartlett20:32

       ... and the coal industry exploded. So I'm wondering, with technology, yes, software developers are gonna maybe not have as many jobs, but there's everything's gonna be software.

   23. MGMo Gawdat20:40

       Name me one.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett20:41

       Name you one what?

   25. MGMo Gawdat20:42

       Job.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett20:43

       Name you ... That's gonna be created?

   27. MGMo Gawdat20:45

       Yeah. One job that cannot be done by an AI-

   28. SBSteven Bartlett20:49

       Yeah

   29. MGMo Gawdat20:49

       ... or a robot.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett20:51

       My girlfriend's breathwork retreat business where she takes groups of women around the world.
6. 28:13 – 35:10

   The AI Monopoly and Self-Evolving Systems

   1. SBSteven Bartlett28:13

      I, I think this is probably worth explaining in layman's terms to people that haven't built AI tools yet because I think, I think to the listener, they probably think that every AI company they're hearing of right now is building their own AI. Whereas actually, what's happening is there is really five, six, seven AI companies in the world, and when I built my AI application-

   2. MGMo Gawdat28:38

      They're all on top of the platform

   3. SBSteven Bartlett28:38

      ... I basically pay them for every time I use their AI. So if Steven Bartlett builds an AI at stevenbartlettai.com, it's not that I've built my own underlying, I've trained my own model. Really what I'm doing is I'm paying Sam Altman's ChatGPT, um, every single time I do a, a call. I basically, um, I do a search or, uh, you know, I use a token. And I think that's really important because most people don't understand that. Unless you've built AI, y- you think, "Oh, look, uh, you know, there's all these AI companies popping up. I've got this one for my email. I've got this one for my dating. I've got..." No, no, no, no, no, no. They're pretty much ... I would be, I would hazard a guess that they're probably all OpenAI at this point.

   4. MGMo Gawdat29:20

      No. There, there are quite a few quite different characters and quite different-

   5. SBSteven Bartlett29:25

      But there's, like, five or six. Yeah

   6. MGMo Gawdat29:26

      There are five or six when it comes to language models-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett29:29

      Yeah

   8. MGMo Gawdat29:29

      ... right? Uh, but interestingly, so yes, I, I should say yes to start, and then I should say, but there was an interesting twist with DeepSeek at the beginning of the year. So what DeepSeek did, uh, is, is, is they basically, uh, nullified the business model, if you want, in two ways. One is it was around a week or two after, um, you know, Trump stood, you know, with pride saying Stargate is the biggest investment project in the history, and it's $500 billion to build AI infrastructure, and SoftBank and Larry Ellison and, and, uh, Sam Altman were sitting and so, you know, beautiful picture. And then DeepSeek R3 comes out. It does the job for a si- uh, one over 30 of the cost, okay? And interestingly, it's entirely open source and available as an edge AI So, so that's really, really interesting because there could be now, in the future, as the technology improves, hmm, the learning models will be massive. But then you can compress them into something you can have on your phone, and you can download DeepSeek literally offline on a, a, a, a, um, um, you know, an off-the-network computer and build an AI on it.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett30:41

      There's a website that basically tracks the, um, sort of cleanest apples to apples market share of all the website referrals sent by AI chatbots, and ChatGPT is currently at 79%, roughly about 80%. Perplexity is at 11. Microsoft Copilot's at about 5. Google Gemini's at about 2. Claude's about 1, and DeepSeek's about 1%. And really, like, the, the point that I, I wanna land is just that when you hear of a new AI app or tool or this one can make videos-

   10. MGMo Gawdat31:08

       It's built on one of them

   11. SBSteven Bartlett31:10

       ... it's basically built on one of these really f- three or four AI platforms that's controlled really by three or four AI, you know, billionaire teams. And actually, the one of them that gets to what we call AGI first, where the AI gets really, really advanced, one could say is potentially gonna rule the world as it relates to technology.

   12. MGMo Gawdat31:35

       Yes, uh, if, if they get enough, uh, head start. So, so I actually think that, uh, what I ca- what I'm more concerned about now is not AGI, believe it or not. So AGI, in my mind, and I said that back in 2023, right? Uh, that we will get to AGI. At the time, I said 2027. Now I believe 2026 latest. Okay? The most interesting development that nobody's talking about is self-evolving AIs. Self-dev- evolving AIs is... Think of it this way. If you and I are hiring the top engineer in the world to develop our AI models, and with AGI, that top engineer in the world becomes an AI, who would you hire to develop your next generation AI? That AI.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett32:28

       The one that can teach itself.

   14. MGMo Gawdat32:30

       Correct. So o- one of my favorite examples is called AlphaEvolve. So this is Google's attempt to basically have four agents working together, hmm, four AIs working together, to look at the, uh, at the code of the AI and say, "Where is the... What are the performance issues?" Then, you know, an agent would say, "What's the problem statement? What can I, uh, you know, what do I need to fix?" Hmm. Uh, one that actually develops the solution, one that assesses the solution, and then they continue to do this. And, you know, Goog- I don't remember the exact figure, but I think Google improved, like, 8%, uh, on their AI infrastructure because of AlphaEvolve, right? And when you really, really think, don't quote me on the number, 8 to 10, 6 to 10, whatever. In Google terms, by the way, that is massive. That's billions and billions of dollars. Hmm. Now, the, the, the, the trick here is this, hmm. The trick is, again, you have to think in game theory format. Is there any scenario we can think of where if one player uses AI to develop the next generation AI, that the other players will say, "No, no, no, no, no, that's too much. W- you know, takes us out of control"? Every other player will copy that model and have their next AI model developed by an AI.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett33:45

       Is this what Sam Altman talks about, who's the founder of, um, ChatGPT/OpenAI, when he talks about a fast takeoff?

   16. MGMo Gawdat33:52

       I don't know exactly what y- which, what, which you're referring to, but we're all t- talking about a point there now that we call the intelligence explosion. So, so there is a moment in time where you have to imagine that if AI now is better than 97% of all code developers in the world, and soon will be able to look at its own code, own algorithms... By the way, they're becoming incredible mathematicians, which wasn't the case when we last met. Hmm. If they can develop, im- improve their own code, improve their own algorithms, improve their own, uh, uh, you know, uh, network architecture or whatever, you can imagine that very quickly the force applied to developing the next AI is not gonna be a human brain anymore. It's gonna be a much smarter brain. And very quickly, as humans, like basically when, when we ran the Google infrastructure, hmm, when the machine said we need another server or a proxy server in that place, we followed. We, we never really, you know, wanted to, to object or verify because, you know, the code would probably know better because there are billions of transactions an hour or a day. Hmm. And so very quickly, those self-evolving AIs will simply say, "I need 14 more servers here." And we'll just, you know, the team will just go ahead and do it.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett35:09

       I watched a video

7. 35:10 – 39:35

   Sam Altman's OpenAI Letter

   1. SBSteven Bartlett35:10

      a couple of days ago where he, Sam Altman, effectively had changed his mind. Because in 2023, which is when we last met, he said the aim was for, um, a slow takeoff, which is sort of gradual deployment. And OpenAI's 2000 and thir- 2023 note says, "A slower takeoff is easier to make safe," and they prefer iterative rollouts so society can adapt. In 2025-

   2. MGMo Gawdat35:36

      Yeah

   3. SBSteven Bartlett35:36

      ... they changed their mind.

   4. MGMo Gawdat35:37

      I said that more quickly.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett35:38

      And Sam Altman said he now thinks a fast takeoff is more possible than he did a couple of years ago on the order of a small number of years rather than a decade. Um, and it- to define what we mean by a fast takeoff, it's defined as when AI goes from roughly human level to far beyond human very quickly, think months to a few years, faster than governments, companies, or society can adapt, with little warning, big power shifts, and hard to control. A slow takeoff, by contrast, is where capabilities climb gradually over many years with lots of warning shots.

   6. MGMo Gawdat36:14

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett36:15

      Um, and the, the red flags for a fast takeoff is when AI can self-improve, run autonomous research and development, and scale with massive compute compounding gains, which will snowball fast So, uh, uh, and I think from the video that I watched of Sam Altman recently, who again is the founder of OpenAI and ChatGPT, he basically says, and again, I'm paraphrasing here, I will put it on the screen. We have this community notes thing, so I'll write it on the screen. But he effectively said that whoever gets to AGI first will have the technology-

   8. MGMo Gawdat36:47

      To develop superintelligence

   9. SBSteven Bartlett36:48

      ... where the AI can, can rapidly increase its own intelligence-

   10. MGMo Gawdat36:52

       Yeah

   11. SBSteven Bartlett36:52

       ... and it will basically leave everyone else behind.

   12. MGMo Gawdat36:55

       Yes. Uh, so that last bit is debatable, but, but let's just agree that, uh... So, so in, in Alive, uh, you know, one of the posts I, I shared and got a lot of interest is I referred to the, the Altman as a brand, not as a human. Okay? So the Altman is that, uh, persona of a California disruptive technologist that disrespects everyone, okay? And believes that disruption is good for humanity and believes that this is good for safety. And like everything else, like we say war is for democracy and freedom, they say, uh, developing, you know, putting, uh, AI on the open internet is good for everyone, right? It allows us to learn from our mistakes. That was Sam Altman's 2023 spiel. And if you recall, at the time I was like, "This is the most dangerous." You know, one of the clips that really went viral, you saw... You're, you're so clever at finding the right clips, is when I said-

   13. SBSteven Bartlett37:53

       I didn't, I didn't do the clipping, mate. [laughs]

   14. MGMo Gawdat37:55

       The, the team. Remember the clip where I said, "We fucked up." We always said, "Don't put them on the open internet until we know what we're putting out in the world."

   15. SBSteven Bartlett38:05

       I remember you saying that, yeah.

   16. MGMo Gawdat38:06

       Yeah. We, we, we fucked up on putting it on the open internet, teaching it to, to code and putting, you know, agents, AI agents prompting other AIs. Now AI agents prompting other AIs are leading to self-developing AIs. Hmm. And, and the problem is, of course, we, you know, anyone who has been on the inside of this knew that this was just a clever spiel made by a PR manager for, uh, Sam Altman to sit with his dreamy eyes in front of Congress and say, "We want you to regulate us." Now they're saying, "We're unregulatable." Okay? And, and when you really understand what's happening here, what's happening is it's so fast, hmm, that none of them has the choice to slow down. It's impossible. Neither China versus America or OpenAI versus, uh, Google. The, the, the only thing that I may have, may see happening that you, you know, that, that may differ a little bit from your statement is if one of them gets there be- first, uh, then they dominate for the rest of humanity. That is probably true if they get there first, uh, with a, with an enough buffer. Okay? But the way you look at Grok coming a week after OpenAI, a week after, uh, uh, you know, Gemini, a week after Claude, and then Claude comes again, and then China re-releases something, and then Korea releases some- something. It is so fast that

8. 39:35 – 53:09

   Do AI Companies Have Society's Interest at Heart?

   1. MGMo Gawdat39:35

      we may get a few of them at the same time or a few months apart, okay, before one of them has enough power to become dominant. And that is a very interesting scenario. Multiple AIs, all super intelligent.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett39:51

      It's funny, you know, I, I, I got asked yesterday. I was in, I was in Belgium on stage. There was, I don't know, maybe 4,000 people in the audience, and a, a kid stood up and he was like, "Um, you've had a lot of conversations in the last year about AI. Like, why do you care?" And I don't think people realize how even though I've had so many conversations on this podcast about AI-

   3. MGMo Gawdat40:11

      You haven't made up your mind?

   4. SBSteven Bartlett40:12

      I, I, I have-

   5. MGMo Gawdat40:13

      No

   6. SBSteven Bartlett40:13

      ... more questions than ever.

   7. MGMo Gawdat40:14

      I know.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett40:15

      And it's, and it doesn't seem that anyone can satiate my questions.

   9. MGMo Gawdat40:18

      Anyone that tells you they can predict the future is arrogant.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett40:21

       Yeah.

   11. MGMo Gawdat40:22

       It is. It's never moved so fast. Okay?

   12. SBSteven Bartlett40:25

       It's nothing, like nothing I've ever seen.

   13. MGMo Gawdat40:27

       Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett40:27

       And, you know, by the time that we leave this conversation and I go to my computer, there's gonna be some incredible new technology or application of AI that didn't exist when I woke up this morning that creates probably another paradigm shift in my brain. Also, you know, I- people have different opinions of Elon Musk, and they're, they're entitled to their own opinion. But the other day, only a couple of days ago, he did a tweet where he said, "At times, AI existential dread is overwhelming." And on the same day, he tweeted, "I resisted AI for too long, living in denial. Now it is game on." And he tagged his AI companies. I don't know what to make of, I don't know what to make of those tweets. I don't know. And, you know, I, I try really hard to figure out if someone like Sam Altman has the best interests of society at heart.

   15. MGMo Gawdat41:22

       No.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett41:24

       Or if these people are just like-

   17. MGMo Gawdat41:25

       I'm, I'm, I'm saying that publicly. No. As a matter of fact, so I know Sundar Pichai. I worked with-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett41:31

       Who is-

   19. MGMo Gawdat41:32

       ... uh, CEO of, uh, Alphabet, Google's parent company. An amazing human being on, in all honesty. I know Dennis Hassabis, amazing human being. Okay? Uh, you know, these are, are ethical, incredible, uh, humans at heart. They have no choice. Uh, uh, S- Sundar, by law, hmm, is, uh, demanded to take care of his, his shareholder value. That's all. That is his job.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett42:00

       But Sundar, you said you know him. You used to work at Google.

   21. MGMo Gawdat42:03

       Yeah.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett42:04

       He's not gonna do anything that he thinks is gonna harm humanity.

   23. MGMo Gawdat42:07

       But if, if he does not continue to advance AI, that by definition, uh, uh, uh, contradicts his responsibility as the CEO of a publicly traded company. He is liable by law to continue to advance the agenda. There's absolutely no doubt about it. Now, so, but, but he's a good person at heart. Demis is a good person at heart, so they're trying so hard to make it safe, okay? As much as they can Reality, however, is the, the, the disruptor, the Altman as a brand, hmm, doesn't care that much

   24. SBSteven Bartlett42:40

       How do you know that?

   25. MGMo Gawdat42:41

       In reality, the disruptor is someone that comes in with the objective of, "I don't like the status quo. I have a different approach." And that different approach, if you just look at the story, hmm, was we are a non-for-profit that is funded mostly by Elon Musk money, if not entirely by Elon Musk money.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett43:00

       So context here for people that might not understand. OpenAI, the reason I always give context is funnily enough, I, I think I told you this last time, I went to a prison where they play The Diary Of A CEO.

   27. MGMo Gawdat43:09

       No way.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett43:10

       So they play The Diary Of A CEO in I think it's 50 prisons in the UK to young offenders.

   29. MGMo Gawdat43:13

       And, and, and no violence there? [laughs]

   30. SBSteven Bartlett43:15

       Well, I don't know. I can't, I can't, I can't tell you whether violence has gone up or down. But, uh, I was in the cell with one of the prisoners, a young, a young Black guy, and I was in his cell for, for, for a little while.
9. 53:09 – 1:01:28

   Will New Jobs Be Created?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett53:09

      Aren't there gonna be lots of new jobs created, though? Because when we think about the other revolutions over time, whether it's the Industrial Revolution or other sort of big technological revolutions-

   2. MGMo Gawdat53:19

      Yeah

   3. SBSteven Bartlett53:20

      ... in the moment, we forecasted that everyone was gonna lose their jobs, but we couldn't see all the new jobs that were being created.

   4. MGMo Gawdat53:27

      Because the, the, the machines, hmm, replaced the human strengths at that point in time, and very few places in the West today will have a worker carry things on their back and carry it upstairs. The machine does that work, correct?

   5. SBSteven Bartlett53:43

      Yeah.

   6. MGMo Gawdat53:44

      Uh, similarly, hmm, AI is going to replace the brain of a human. And when the West, in its interesting, uh, virtual colonies that I call it, hmm, uh, basically outsourced all labor to the, to the in- developing nations, hmm, what the West publicly said at the time is, "We're, we're gonna be a services economy. We're, we're, we're not interested in making things and stitching things and so let the Indians and Chinese and, you know, Bengalis and Vi- Vietnamese do that. Hmm. We're gonna do more refined jobs, knowledge workers we're gonna call them." Knowledge workers are people who work with information and click on a keyboard and move a mouse and, you know, sit in meetings, and all we produce in the Western societies is what? Blah, blah, blah, blah, words, right? Or designs maybe sometimes, but everything we produce can be produced by an AI So if I give you an AI tomorrow, hmm, where I give you a piece of land, I give the AI a piece of land and I say, "Here are the parameters of my land. Here is its location on Google Maps. Design an architecturally sound villa for me. I care about a lot of light, and I need three bedrooms. I want my bathrooms to be in white marble," whatever. And the AI produces it like that. How often will you go to an, uh, to an architect and say ... Right? So what will the architect do? The best of the best of the architects will either use AI to produce that, or you will consult with them and say, "Hey, you know, I've seen this," and they'll say, "Hmm, it's really pretty, but it wouldn't feel right for the person that you are." Yeah, those jobs will remain, but how many of them will remain? Hmm? How, how often do you think, uh, how many more years do you think I will be able to create a book that is smarter than AI? Not many, hmm? I will still be able to connect to a human. You're not gonna hug an AI when you meet them like you hug me, right? But that's not enough of a job. So why do I say that? Remember I asked you at the beginning of the podcast to remind me of solutions, hmm? Why do I say that? Because there are ideological shifts and, and concrete actions that need to be taken by governments today. Rather than waiting until COVID is already everywhere and then locking everyone down, hmm, governments could have reacted before the first patient, or at least at patient zero, or at least at patient 50. They didn't, hmm? What I'm trying to say is there is no doubt that lots of jobs will be lost. There is no doubt that there will be sectors of society where 10, 20, 30, 40, 50% of all developers, all software, uh, you know, all, all graphic designers, all, um, uh, uh, um, online marketers, all, all, all, all assistances, hmm, are gonna be out of a job. So are we prepared as a society to do that? Can we tell our governments there is an ideological shift? This is very close to social- socialism and, and communism, okay? And are we ready from a budget point of view, instead of spending a, a, a, a trillion dollars a year on, on arms and, and explosives and, you know, autonomous weapons that will oppress people because we can't feed them, hmm? Can we please shift that? I did those numbers, huh? Uh, again, I, I go back to military spending because it's all around us. 2.71 trillion dollars, 2.4 to 2.7 is the estimate of 2024.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett57:24

      How much money we're spending on military?

   8. MGMo Gawdat57:25

      On, on, yeah, on military equipment, on things that we're gonna ex- explode into smoke, hmm, and death. Extreme poverty worldwide, extreme poverty is people that are below the poverty line, hmm. Extreme poverty everywhere in the world could end for 10 to 12% of that budget. So if we replace our military spending, 10% of that, hmm, to go to people who are in extreme poverty, nobody will be poor in the world, okay? You can end, uh, world hunger for less than 4%. Nobody would be hungry in the world. You know, if you take, uh, again, 10 to 12% universal healthcare, every human be- being on the planet would have free healthcare for 10 to 12% on what we're spending on war. Now, why, why do I say this when we're talking about AI? Because that's a simple decision. If we stop fighting because money itself does not have the same meaning anymore, because the economics of money is going to change, because the entire meaning of capitalism is ending, because there is no more need for labor arbitrage because AI is doing everything, hmm? Just with the $2.4 trillion we save in explosives every year, in arms and weapons, hmm, just for that, universal hea- healthcare, end extreme poverty, uh, you could actually ... One of the calculations is you could end clim- or combat climate ch- climate change meaningfully for 100% of the military budget.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett58:53

      But I n- I'm not even sure it's really about the money. I think money is a measurement stick of power, right?

   10. MGMo Gawdat58:59

       Exactly. It's printed on demand.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett59:00

       So even in a world where we have super intelligence and money is no longer a problem-

   12. MGMo Gawdat59:05

       Correct

   13. SBSteven Bartlett59:05

       ... I still think power is gonna be insatiable for so many people, so there'll still be war because, you know-

   14. MGMo Gawdat59:15

       There will be more war, in my view

   15. SBSteven Bartlett59:16

       ... I want the strongest, the strongest, I want the strongest AI. I don't want my-

   16. MGMo Gawdat59:19

       And I don't, and I don't want, you know what Henry K- or Henry Kissinger called them? The eaters.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett59:25

       The eaters?

   18. MGMo Gawdat59:25

       Yeah. Brutal as that sounds.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett59:29

       What, is that the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic-

   20. MGMo Gawdat59:32

       That don't produce but consume. So if you had a Henry Kissinger at the, at the helm, and we have so many of them, what would they think? Like why-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett59:42

       I don't even know who that is

   22. MGMo Gawdat59:42

       ... why, why, uh, uh, very prominent, uh, military figure in the US history.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett59:47

       Oh, okay.

   24. MGMo Gawdat59:48

       Uh, you know, why, why would we feed 350 million Americans, America would think? But more interestingly, why do we even care about Bangladesh anymore if we can't make our textiles there, or we don't want to make our textile there?

   25. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:03

       Do you ... You know, I, I imagine throughout human history, if we had podcasts, conversations would, would have been warning of a dystopia around the corner. You know, when they had-

   26. MGMo Gawdat1:00:13

       100%

   27. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:14

       ... technology and the internet, they would've said, "Oh, we're finished."

   28. MGMo Gawdat1:00:16

       100%.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:16

       And when the, the tractor came along, they would've said, "Oh God, we're finished because we're not gonna be able to farm anymore." So is this not just another one of those moments where we couldn't see around the corner, so we, we forecasted unfortunate things?

   30. MGMo Gawdat1:00:29

       It could be. I, I am, I'm begging that I'm wrong, okay? I'm just asking if there are scenarios that you think that can provide that. You know, uh, uh, Mustafa Suleyman in, in, uh, you hosted him here, uh-
10. 1:01:28 – 1:03:13

    What Do We Do in This New World?

    1. MGMo Gawdat1:01:28

       of mobile phones? Hmm. And, and I think the whole idea is we should hope there will be other roles for humanity, by the way. Those roles would resemble the times where we were hunter gatherers, just a lot more technology and a lot more safety.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:44

       Okay, so this is, this sounds good.

    3. MGMo Gawdat1:01:46

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:46

       This is exciting. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna get to go outside more, be with my friends more.

    5. MGMo Gawdat1:01:51

       100%.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:52

       Fantastic.

    7. MGMo Gawdat1:01:52

       And do absolutely nothing. And, and-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:54

       Well, that doesn't sound fantastic.

    9. MGMo Gawdat1:01:55

       No, it does. Do ... Be forced to do absolutely nothing. For some people, it's amazing. For you and I, we're gonna find a little carpentry project and just do something.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:03

        Speak for yourself. I'm still ... People are still gonna tune in.

    11. MGMo Gawdat1:02:05

        Okay. [laughs]

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:07

        [laughs]

    13. MGMo Gawdat1:02:07

        Correct.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:08

        Yeah.

    15. MGMo Gawdat1:02:08

        But what, uh ... And people are going to s- to tune in. But-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:11

        Do you think they will? I'm not ex- I'm not, I'm not convinced they will. [laughs]

    17. MGMo Gawdat1:02:14

        And for, for as long-

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:15

        Will you guys tune in? Are you guys still gonna tune in?

    19. MGMo Gawdat1:02:17

        Yeah. I'm, I can let them answer. I'm, I believe for as long as you sh- make their life enriched.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:25

        But can an AI do that better?

    21. MGMo Gawdat1:02:27

        Without the human connection.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:29

        Comment below. Are you gonna listen to an AI or The Diary Of A CEO? Let me know in the comment section below.

    23. MGMo Gawdat1:02:33

        Okay. Remember, as incredibly intelligent as you are, Steve, uh, there will be a moment in time where you're going to sound really dumb compared to an AI. And, and, and I, and I will sound completely dumb.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:45

        Yeah, I ... Yeah.

    25. MGMo Gawdat1:02:46

        The, the, the depth, the depths of analysis, hmm, and, and gold nuggets. I mean, can you imagine two super intelligences deciding to get together and explain, um, string theory to us? They'd do better than any physic- physicist in the world because they possess the physics knowledge, and they also pos- pos- possess social and language knowledge that most deep physicists don't.

11. 1:03:13 – 1:04:17

    Ads

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:14

       I think B2B marketeers keep making this mistake. They're chasing volume instead of quality. And when you try to be seen by more people instead of the right people, all you're doing is making noise, but that noise rarely shifts the needle, and it's often quite expensive. And I know, as there was a time in my career where I kept making this mistake, that many of you will be making it, too. Eventually, I started posting ads on our show sponsor's platform, LinkedIn, and that's when things started to change. I put that change down to a few critical things, one of them being that LinkedIn was then, and still is today, the platform where decision makers go to, not only to think and learn, but also to buy. And when you market your business there, you're putting it right in front of people who actually have the power to say yes. And you can target them by job title, industry, and company size. It's simply a sharper way to spend your marketing budget. And if you haven't tried it, how about this? Give LinkedIn ads a try, and I'm going to give you $100 ad credit to get you started. If you visit linkedin.com/diary, you can claim that right now. That's linkedin.com/diary.

12. 1:04:17 – 1:08:11

    Will We Prefer AI Over Humans in Certain Jobs?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:17

       I've, I've really gone back and forward on this idea that even in podcasting that w- all the podcasts will be AI podcasts or ... I've gone back and forward on it. And, and where I landed at the end of the day was that there'll still be a category of media where you do want lived experience on something.

    2. MGMo Gawdat1:04:33

       100%.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:34

       For example, like you want to know how the person that you follow and admire dealt with their divorce.

    4. MGMo Gawdat1:04:40

       Yeah. Or, or how they're struggling with AI.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:43

       For example.

    6. MGMo Gawdat1:04:43

       Yeah.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:43

       Yeah, exactly. But I, but I think things like news, there are, there are certain situations where just like straight news and straight facts and maybe a walk through history may be eroded away by AIs. But even in those scenarios, you ... There's something about personality. And again, I, I hesitate here 'cause I question myself. I'm not in the camp of people that are romantic, by the way. I'm like, I'm trying to be as, as orientated towards whatever is true, even if it's against my interests, and I hope people understand that about me. Like, um, 'cause even in my companies, we experiment with like disrupting me with AI, and some people will be aware of those experiments. I guess-

    8. MGMo Gawdat1:05:20

       There, there, there will be a mix of all. There ... You, you can't imagine that the world will be completely just AI and completely just podcasters. You know? You'll see a mix of, of both. You'll see things that they do better, things that we do better.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:32

       Yeah.

    10. MGMo Gawdat1:05:33

        The, the, the message I'm trying to say is we need to prep for that. We need to be ready for that. We need to be ready by, you know, talking to our governments and saying, "Hey, it looks like I'm a, a paralegal, and it looks like all paralegals are going to be, you know, financial researchers or, uh, analysts or graphic designers or, you know, call center agents. It looks like half of those jobs are being replaced already."

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:58

        You know who Geoffrey Hinton is?

    12. MGMo Gawdat1:05:59

        Oh, Geoff ... I m- I had him on the documentary as well. I love Geoffrey.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:04

        Geoffrey Hinton told me-

    14. MGMo Gawdat1:06:05

        Train to be a plumber.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:06

        Really?

    16. MGMo Gawdat1:06:07

        Yeah. 100%, uh, for a while.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:10

        And I, I thought he was joking.

    18. MGMo Gawdat1:06:12

        100%.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:12

        And so I asked him again, and he, he looked me dead in the eye and told me that I, I should train to be a plumber.

    20. MGMo Gawdat1:06:18

        100%. So, so, so, uh, uh, it's funny, huh? Uh, machines replaced labor, but we still had blue collar. Hmm. Then, uh, you know, the refined jobs became white collar information workers.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:30

        What's the refined jobs?

    22. MGMo Gawdat1:06:32

        You know, you don't have to really carry heavy stuff or deal with physical work. You know, you sit in an, uh, in an office and sit in meetings all day and blabber, you know, useless shit, and y-

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:41

        [laughs]

    24. MGMo Gawdat1:06:41

        That's your job.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:42

        Yeah.

    26. MGMo Gawdat1:06:42

        Okay? And those jobs, hmm, funny enough, in the reverse of that, because robotics are not ready yet, okay? And I believe they're not ready because of a stubbornness On the co- on the robotics community around making them humanoids

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:57

        Mm-hmm

    28. MGMo Gawdat1:06:58

        Okay? Because it takes so much to perfect a human-like action at proper speed. You could, you know, have many more robots that don't look like a human, just like a self-driving car in California, okay?

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:11

        Mm-hmm.

    30. MGMo Gawdat1:07:11

        That r- that does already replace drivers, hmm. And, and you know, but, but they're delayed. So the robotic, the, the replacement of physical manual labor, hmm, is going to take four to five years before it's possible at, you know, at, at the quality of the AI replacing mental labor now. And when that happens, it's gonna take a long cycle to manufacture enough robots so that they replace all of those jobs. So that cycle will take longer. Blue collar will stay longer.
13. 1:08:11 – 1:17:34

    From Augmented Intelligence to AI Replacement

    1. MGMo Gawdat1:08:11

       in, you know, ministries of labor around the world needs to sit down and say, "What are we gonna do about that?" What if all taxi drivers and Uber drivers in, uh, in California get replaced by self-driving cars? Should we start thinking about that now, noticing that the trajectory thi- makes it look like a possibility?

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:34

       Again, I g- go back to this argument, which is what a lot of people will be shouting. Yes, but there will be new jobs or-

    3. MGMo Gawdat1:08:40

       Uh, and I, as I said, other than human connection jobs, name me one.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:45

       So I- I've got three assistants, right? Sophie, Liam, Dee. And okay, in the near term there might be a s- you know, with AI agents, I might not need them to help me book flights anymore. I might not need them to help do scheduling anymore, or even I've been messing around with this new AI tool that my friend built, and you basically, when me and you are trying to schedule something like this today, I just copy the AI in and it looks at your calendar, looks at mine, and schedules it for, for us. So there might not be scheduling needs, but my dog is sick at the moment, and as I left this morning, I was like, "Damn, he's like really sick, and I've taken him to the vet over and over again. I really need someone to look after him and figure out what's wrong with him." So those kinds of responsibilities of like care-

    5. MGMo Gawdat1:09:27

       I don't disagree at all. Again, all-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:30

       And, and I, I won't... I'm not gonna be, uh, I don't know how to say this in a nice way, but my assistants will still have their jobs, but I, I as a CEO will be asking them to do a different type of work.

    7. MGMo Gawdat1:09:42

       Correct. So, so th- so this is the calculation everyone needs to be aware of, hmm. The, a lot of their current responsibility, whoever you are, if you're a paralegal, if you're whatever, hmm, w- will be handed over. So, so, uh, let me explain it even more accurately. There will be two stages, hmm, of our interactions with the machines. One is what I call the, uh, era of augmented intelligence, so it's human intelligence augmented with AI doing the job. And then n- n- the following one is what I call the era of machine mastery. The job is done completely by an AI without a human in the loop. Okay? So in the era of augmented intelligence, your assistances will augment themselves with an AI to either be more productive-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:26

       Yeah

    9. MGMo Gawdat1:10:27

       ... okay? Or, hmm, interestingly, to reduce the number of tasks that they need to do. Correct? Now, the more the number of tasks get reduced, the more they'll have the bandwidth and ability to do tasks like take care of your dog, right? Or tasks that, uh, you know, basically is about meeting your guests or whatever. Human connection-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:49

        Yeah

    11. MGMo Gawdat1:10:49

        ... m- m- m- life connection, hmm. But do you think you need three for that? Or maybe now that some tasks have been, uh, you know, outsourced to AI, will you need two? You can easily calculate that from call center agents. So from call center agents, they're not firing everyone, but they're taking the first part of the funnel and giving it to an AI. So instead of having 2,000 agents in a, in a call center, they can now do the job with 1,800. I'm just making that number up, hmm. Society needs to think about the 200.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:25

        And you're telling me that they won't move into other roles somewhere else?

    13. MGMo Gawdat1:11:29

        I am telling you I don't know what those roles are.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:31

        Well, I, I think-

    15. MGMo Gawdat1:11:32

        I think we should all be musicians. We should all be authors. We should all be artists. We should all be entertainers. We should all be comedians. We should all... These are roles that will remain. We should all be plumbers for the next five to 10 years. Fantastic. Okay? But even that requires society to morph, and society's not talking about it. Okay? I had this wonderful interview with friends of mine, Peter Diamandis and, and, and some of our friends, hmm, and, and they were saying, "Oh, you know, the American people are resilience. They're going to be entrepreneurs." I was like, "Seriously? You're expecting a truck driver that will be replaced by, uh, an autonomous truck to become an entrepreneur?" Like, please put yourself in the shoes of real people, right? Do you expect a single mother who has three jobs to become an entrepreneur? And I'm not saying this is a dystopia. It's a dystopia if humanity manages it badly. Why? Because this could be the utopia itself where that single mother does not need three jobs. Okay? If we of, if our society was just enough, that single mother should have never needed three jobs, right? But the problem is our capitalist mindset is labor arbitrage, is that I don't care what she goes through Uh, uh, you know, if, if you're, if you're generous in your assumption, you would say, "Because, you know, of what I've been given, I've been blessed," or if you're mean in your assumption, it's going to be because she's an eater. I'm a, a, a successful businessman. The world is supposed to be fair. I work hard. I make money. We don't care about them.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:15

        Are we asking of ourselves here something that is not inherent in the human condition? What I mean by that is the reason why me and you are in this, my office here, we're on the fourth or third floor of my office in Central London, big office, 25,000 square feet with lights and internet connections and Wi-Fis and modems and AI teams downstairs. The reason that all of this exists is because something inherent in my ancestors meant that they built and accomplished and grew, and that was, like, inherent in their DNA. There was something in their DNA that said, "We will expand and conquer and accomplish." So that's ... They've passed that to us because we're their offspring, and that's why we find ourselves in these skyscrapers.

    17. MGMo Gawdat1:13:59

        Th- there is truth to that story. It's not your ancestors, right?

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:03

        What is it?

    19. MGMo Gawdat1:14:04

        It's the media brainwashing you.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:06

        Really?

    21. MGMo Gawdat1:14:07

        100%.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:08

        But if, if you look back before-

    23. MGMo Gawdat1:14:09

        So-

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:09

        ... times of media-

    25. MGMo Gawdat1:14:10

        Mm-hmm

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:11

        ... the reason why homo sapiens were so successful was because they were able to dominate other tribes.

    27. MGMo Gawdat1:14:15

        No.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:15

        Through banding together and communication, they conquered all these other, these other, um, uh, w- whatever came before homo sapiens.

    29. MGMo Gawdat1:14:24

        Yeah, so, so the, the reason humans were successful, in my view, is because they could form a tribe to start. It's not because of our intelligence. I always joke and say Einstein would be eaten in the jungle in two minutes.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:35

        Hmm.
14. 1:17:34 – 1:26:36

    A Society Where No One Works?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:34

       So why do they do it then? Because h- homo sapiens were incredible competitors. They outcompeted other human species effectively. So, and what I'm saying is, is, is that competition not inherent in our, in our wiring?

    2. MGMo Gawdat1:17:47

       Right.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:47

       And, and therefore, are we, are we ... Is it wishful thinking to think that we could potentially pause and say, we, we, "Okay, this is it. We have enough now, and we're going to focus on just enjoying"?

    4. MGMo Gawdat1:18:03

       In my work, I call that the MAP-MAD spectrum, okay? Mut- mutually assured prosperity versus mutually assured destruction, dis- destruction, okay? And you really have to start thinking about this because in my mind, hmm, what we have is the potential for everyone ... I mean, you and I today have a better life than the Queen of England 100 years ago, correct?

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:29

       Yeah.

    6. MGMo Gawdat1:18:29

       Everybody knows that. Uh, and yet that quality of life is not good enough, hmm? The truth is, like, just like you walk into a, a, an electronics shop and there are 60 TVs, and you look at them and you go like, "This one is better than that one," right? But in reality, if you take any of them home, it's superior quality to anything that you'll ever need.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:51

       Mm-hmm.

    8. MGMo Gawdat1:18:51

       Mo- more than anything you ne- you'll ever need. That, that's the truth of our life today. The truth of our life today is that there isn't much more missing

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:59

       No

    10. MGMo Gawdat1:18:59

        Okay? And, and when, when, you know, Californians tell us, "Oh, but AI is going to increase productivity and solve this," and nobody asked you for that, honestly. I never elected you to decide on my behalf that, you know, getting a machine to answer me on a call center is better for me. I really didn't. Okay? And, and because those unelected individuals are making all the decisions, they're selling those decisions to us through what? Media. Okay? All lies from A to Z. None of it is what you need. And, and interestingly, you know me, I, I ... This year I failed, unfortunately, I won't be able to do it, but I normally do a 40 days silent retreat in nature. Okay? And you know what? Even as I go to those nature places, I'm so well-trained that unless I have a, a Waitrose nearby, I'm not able to. Like, I, I'm, I'm in nature, but I need to be able to drive 20 minutes to get my rice cakes. Like, what? What? Hmm? Who has taught me that this is the way to live? All of the media around me, all of the, of the, of the messages that I get all the time. Try to sit back and say, "What if life had everything? What if I had everything I needed?" I could read, I could, uh, you know, do my handcrafts and hobbies. I could, you know, uh, fix my, you know, cl- restore classic cars, not because I need the money, but because it's just a beautiful hobby. I could, you know, uh, build AIs to help people with their long-term committed relationships, but really price it for free. What if? What if? Would you still insist on making money? I think no. I think a few of us will still, and they will still crush the rest of us, and hopefully soon the AI will crush them. [laughs] Right? That is the problem with your world today. I will tell you hands down. The problem with u- with our world today is the A in FACE RIPs. It's the A in FACE RIPs. It's w- it's accountability. The problem with our world today, as I said, the top is lying all the time, the bottom is gullible cheerleaders, and there is no accountability. You cannot hold anyone in our world accountable today. Okay? You cannot hold someone that develops an AI that has the power to completely flip our world upside down, you cannot hold them accountable and say, "Why did you do this?" You cannot hold them accountable and tell them to stop doing this. You could look at the world, the wars around the world, million, hundreds of thousands of people are dying. Okay? And, you know, uh, inter- and, uh, co- uh, International Court of Justice will say, "Oh, this is war crimes," and you can't hold anyone accountable. Okay? You have 51% of the US today saying, "Stop that." Hmm? 51% changed their, their, their, their loy- their view that AI, that, that their money shouldn't be spent on wars abroad. Okay? You can't hold anyone accountable. Trump can do whatever he wants. He starts tariffs, which is against the, the Constitution of the US, without consulting with the Congress. You can't hold him accountable. They say they're not gonna show the Epstein files. You can't hold them accountable. It's quite interesting. In, in Arabic we have that proverb that says, "The highest of your horses you can go and ride. I'm not gonna change my mind." Okay? And that's truly-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:32

        What does that mean?

    12. MGMo Gawdat1:22:33

        So basically people in the, in the old Arabia, they would ride a horse to, you know, to exert their power if you want. So go ride your highest horse. I'm not gonna change my mind.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:44

        Oh, okay.

    14. MGMo Gawdat1:22:45

        Right? And, and the truth is, hmm, that's, I think that's what our politicians today have discovered, what our [coughs] oligarchs have discovered, what h- our, uh, tech oligarchs have discovered, is that I don't even need to worry about the public opinion anymore. Okay? At the beginning I would have to say, "Ah, this is for democracy and freedom, and I have the right to defend myself," and, you know, all of that crap. And then eventually when the world wakes up and says, "No, no, hold on, hold on, you're going too far," they go like, "Yeah, go ride your highest horse. I don't care. You can't change me." There is no constitution. There is no ability for any, any citizen to do anything.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:23:24

        Is it possible to have a society where, like the one you describe, where there isn't hierarchies? 'Cause it appears to me that humans assemble hierarchies very, very quickly, very naturally, and the minute you have a hierarchy, you have many of the problems that you've described, where there's a top and a bottom, and the, the top have a lot of power and the bottom are-

    16. MGMo Gawdat1:23:47

        Yeah. So, so the mathematics mathematically is actually quite interesting, what I call the, uh, the baseline relevance. So, so think of it this way. Say the average human is an IQ of 100.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:24:00

        Yeah.

    18. MGMo Gawdat1:24:01

        Okay? I tend to believe that when I use my AIs today, hmm, I borrow around 50 to 80 IQ points. I say that because I've worked with people that had 50 to 80 IQ points more than me, and I now can see that I can sort of stand my, my place. 50 I- 50 IQ points, by the way, is enormous because IQ is exponential. So the, the last 50 are bigger than my entire IQ, right? If I borrow 50 IQ points on top of, say, 100 that I have, that's 30%. If I can borrow 100 IQ, that's fif- 50%. That- that's so, you know, basically doubling my intelligence. But if I can borrow 4,000 IQ points, hmm, in three years' time, my IQ itself, my base is irrelevant. Whether you are smarter than me by 20 or 30 or 50, which in our world today made a difference, hmm- In the future, if we can all augment with 4,000, I end up with 4,100, another ends up with 400, 4,000, you know, 130, really doesn't make much difference. Okay? And because of that, hmm, the difference between all of humanity and the augmented intelligence is going to be irrelevant. So all of us suddenly become equal. And, and this also happens economically. All of us become peasants. And I never wanted to tell you that because I think it will make you run faster. Okay? But unless you're in the top 0.1%, you're a peasant. There is no middle class. There is, you know ... If a CEO can be replaced by an AI, all of our middle class is gonna disappear.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:25:52

        What are you telling me?

    20. MGMo Gawdat1:25:55

        All of us will be equal, and it's up to all of us to create a society that we want to live in.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:00

        Which is a good thing.

    22. MGMo Gawdat1:26:01

        100%, but that society is not capitalism.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:05

        What is it?

    24. MGMo Gawdat1:26:06

        Unfortunately, it's much more socialism. It's much more hunter-gatherer. Okay? It's much more communion-like, if you want. Hmm. This is a society where humans connect to humans, connect to nature, connect to the land, connect to knowledge, connect to spirituality. Hmm. Where all that we wake up every morning worried about doesn't feature anymore. And it's a, it's a better world, believe it or not.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:33

        And you-

    26. MGMo Gawdat1:26:33

        We have to transition to it.

15. 1:26:36 – 1:36:35

    If Jobs No Longer Exist, What Will We Do?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:36

       Okay, so i- in such a world, which I guess is your version of the utopia that we can get to, when I wake up in the morning, what do I do?

    2. MGMo Gawdat1:26:43

       What do you do today?

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:44

       I woke up this morning, I spent a lot of time with my dog 'cause my dog is sick as I'm vlogging.

    4. MGMo Gawdat1:26:47

       You're gonna do that too.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:49

       Yeah. I was stroking him a lot, and then I fed him and he was sick again, and I just thought, oh, God-

    6. MGMo Gawdat1:26:52

       Yeah

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:52

       ... so I spoke to the vet and-

    8. MGMo Gawdat1:26:53

       You spend a lot of time with your other dog. You can do that too.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:56

       Okay.

    10. MGMo Gawdat1:26:57

        Right?

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:57

        But then I was very excited to come here, do this, and after this I'm gonna work. It's Saturday, but I'm gonna go downstairs in the office and work.

    12. MGMo Gawdat1:27:03

        Yeah. So s- six hours of the day so far are your dogs and me.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:07

        Yeah.

    14. MGMo Gawdat1:27:07

        Good. You can do that still.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:09

        And then build my business.

    16. MGMo Gawdat1:27:11

        You, you may not need to build your business.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:13

        But I enjoy it.

    18. MGMo Gawdat1:27:14

        Yeah. Th- then do it. If you enjoy it, do it. You may wake up and then, you know, instead of building your business, you may invest in your body a little more, go to the gym a little more. Go play a game. Hmm. Go read a book. Go prompt an AI and learn something. It's not a horrible life. It's the life of your grandparents.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:34

        Mm-hmm.

    20. MGMo Gawdat1:27:34

        It's just two generations ago where people went to work, hmm, before the invention of more, remember, huh? People who, who started working in the '50s and '60s, they worked to make enough money to live a re- reasonable life, went home at 5:00 PM, hmm, had tea with their, uh, with their loved ones, had a wonderful dinner around the table, did a lot of things, you know, uh, for the rest of the evening, and enjoyed life.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:00

        Some of them.

    22. MGMo Gawdat1:28:01

        Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:02

        In the '50s and '60s, there were still people that were-

    24. MGMo Gawdat1:28:04

        Correct. And I think it's a very interesting question. Uh, how many of them? And I really, really am- I actually wonder if people will tell me. Do we think that 99% of the world cannot live without working, or that 99% of the world would happily live without working?

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:24

        What do you think?

    26. MGMo Gawdat1:28:25

        I think if we, if you give me other purpose, you know ... We, we defined our purpose as work. That's a capitalist lie.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:35

        Was there ever a time in human history where our purpose wasn't work?

    28. MGMo Gawdat1:28:40

        100%.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:41

        When was that?

    30. MGMo Gawdat1:28:42

        All through human history until the invention of more.
16. 1:36:35 – 1:38:38

    Ads

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:36:35

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17. 1:38:38 – 1:40:50

    The Abundance Utopia

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:38:38

       One of the things I'm actually really compelled by is this idea of utopia and what that might look and feel like. 'Cause one of the-

    2. MGMo Gawdat1:38:43

       It may not be a utopia to you, I feel, but, uh-

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:38:47

       Well, um, I am ... Well, i- really interestingly, when I have conversations with billionaires, not recording, especially billionaires that are working on AI, the thing they keep telling me, and I've said this before, I think I said it in the Geoffrey Hinton conversation, is they keep telling me that we're gonna have so much free time that those billionaires are now investing in things like football clubs and sporting events and live music and festivals because they believe that we're gonna be in an age of abundance. This sounds a bit like utopia.

    4. MGMo Gawdat1:39:21

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:23

       That sounds good. That sounds like a good, good thing.

    6. MGMo Gawdat1:39:27

       Yeah. How do we get there?

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:29

       I don't know.

    8. MGMo Gawdat1:39:30

       That's ... This is the entire conversation. The entire conversation is what does society have to do to get there?

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:35

       What does society have to do to get there?

    10. MGMo Gawdat1:39:37

        We need to stop, uh, uh, thinking from a mindset of scarcity.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:41

        It, uh ... And this goes back to my point, which is we don't have a good track record of that.

    12. MGMo Gawdat1:39:46

        Hun- um, uh, yeah, so this is probably the, the reason for the other half of my work, which is, you know, I'm trying to say, hmm, w- what really matters to humans?

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:57

        What is that?

    14. MGMo Gawdat1:39:58

        If, if you ask most humans, what do they want more, most in life?

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:40:02

        I'd say they wanna love their family-

    16. MGMo Gawdat1:40:04

        Love

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:40:04

        ... raise their family. Yeah.

    18. MGMo Gawdat1:40:06

        Love. That's what most humans want most. We want to love and be loved. We want to be happy. We want those we care about to be safe and happy, and we want to love, to love and be loved. I tend to believe that the only way for us to get to a better place is for the evil people at the top to be replaced with AI. Okay? Because they won't be replaced by us. Hmm. And as per the second, uh, dilemma, they will have to replace themselves by AI, otherwise they lose their advantage. If their competitor moves to AI, if China hands over their arsenal to AI, America has to hand over their arsenal to AI.

18. 1:40:50 – 1:54:24

    AI Ruling the World

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:40:50

       Interesting. So let's play out this scenario. Okay, I ... This is interesting to me. So if we replace the leaders that are power hungry with AIs that have our interests at heart, then we might have the ability to live in the utopia you describe.

    2. MGMo Gawdat1:41:03

       100%.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:41:05

       Well, uh, interesting.

    4. MGMo Gawdat1:41:06

       And, and in my mind, AI by definition will have our best interest in mind because of what normally is referred to as the minimum energy principle. So, so if you ask ... If you understand, if you understand that at the very core of physics, okay, the reason we exist in our world today is what is known as entropy. Okay? Entropy is, is, is the universe's nature to decay.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:41:34

       Yeah.

    6. MGMo Gawdat1:41:34

       You know, tendency to break down. You know, if you, if I drop this, uh, uh, you know, mug, it doesn't drop and then come back up.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:41:42

       Mm-hmm.

    8. MGMo Gawdat1:41:43

       By the way, plausible, there is a plausible scenario where I drop it and the tea s- you know, spills in the air and then falls in the mug, one in a trillion configurations. Hmm. But entropy says because it's one in a trillion, it's never gonna happen or rarely ever gonna happen. So everything will break down. You know, if you leave a, a garden unhedged, it will become a jungle. Okay? Uh, w- with that in mind, hmm, the role of intelligence is what? Is to bring order to that chaos.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:42:12

       Mm-hmm.

    10. MGMo Gawdat1:42:13

        That's what intelligence does. It tries to bring order to that chaos. Okay?

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:42:17

        Mm-hmm.

    12. MGMo Gawdat1:42:17

        And because it tries to bring order to that chaos, the more intelligent a being is, the more it tries to apply that intelligence with minimum waste and minimum resources.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:42:29

        Yeah.

    14. MGMo Gawdat1:42:30

        Okay? And you know that. So you can build this business for a million dollars, or you can ... If you can afford to build it for, you know, uh, 200,000, you'll build it. If you are forced to build it for 10 million, you're gonna have to, but you're always going to minimize waste and, and resources.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:42:46

        Yeah.

    16. MGMo Gawdat1:42:46

        Okay? So if you assume this to be true, hmm, the, a super intelligent AI will not want to destroy ecosystems. It will not want to kill a million people because that's a waste of energy, explosives, money, power, and people. B- by definition, the smartest people you know who are not controlled by their ego will say that the best possible, uh, uh, future for, for Earth, hmm, is for all species to continue.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:43:20

        Okay. Uh, on this point of efficiency, if an AI is des- designed to drive efficiency, would it then not want us to be putting demands on our health services and our social services?

    18. MGMo Gawdat1:43:30

        I believe that will be definitely true, and definitely they-

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:43:33

        And logical

    20. MGMo Gawdat1:43:33

        ... definitely they won't allow you to fly back and forth between London and, and Cal- and California.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:43:37

        And they won't want me to have kids? 'Cause my kids are gonna be an inefficiency

    22. MGMo Gawdat1:43:41

        If you assume that life is an inefficiency, so you see the intelligence of life is very different than the intelligence of hu- intelligence of humans. Humans will look at life as a, a problem of scarcity, okay? So more kids take more. That's not how life thinks. Life will sa- will think that for me to, to, to s- to thrive, mm, I don't need to kill the tigers. I need to just have more deer, and the weakest of the deer is eaten by the tiger, and the tiger poops on the trees, and the, you know, the, the deer eats the leaves, and, you know, right? The ... So the, the, the, the smarter way of creating abundance is through abundance. The smarter way of propagating life is to have more life.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:44:25

        Okay. So are you saying that we're, we're basically going to elect AI leaders to rule over us and make decisions for us in terms of the economy and-

    24. MGMo Gawdat1:44:35

        I, I don't see any choice, just like we spoke about self-evolving AIs.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:44:41

        Now, are those gonna be human beings with the AI, or is it gonna be AI alone?

    26. MGMo Gawdat1:44:45

        Two, two, two stages. At the beginning, you'll have augmented intelligence because we can add value to the AI, but when they're at IQ 60,000, what value do you bring? Right? And, and, you know, again, this goes back to what I'm attempting to do on my second, you know, approach. My second approach is knowing that those AIs are going to be in charge, I'm trying to help them, mm, understand what humans want. So this is why my first project is love, committed, true, deep connection and love, not only to try and get them to hook up with a date, but trying to make them find the right one, and then from that, try to guide us through our relationships so that we can understand ourselves and others, right? And if I can show AI that, one, humanity cares about that, and two, they know how to foster love, mm, when AI then is in charge, they'll not make us hate each other like the current leaders. They'll not divide us. They want us to be more loving.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:45:52

        Will we have to prompt the AI with the values and the outcome we want? Or, like, I'm trying to understand that because I'm trying to understand how, like, China's AI, if they end up having an AI leader, will have a different set of objectives to the AI of the United States if, if they both have AIs as leaders and h- and how actually the nation that ends up winning out and dominating the world will be the one who, who asks their AI leader to be all the things that world leaders are today, to dominate-

    28. MGMo Gawdat1:46:22

        Unfortunately-

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:46:23

        ... to grab resources-

    30. MGMo Gawdat1:46:24

        Yeah
19. 1:54:24 – 1:57:17

    Everything Will Be Free

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:54:24

       And in such a world where there was an AI leader and it was given the directive of making us prosperous as a whole world, the, the tr- the billionaire that owns the yacht would have to give it up?

    2. MGMo Gawdat1:54:34

       No.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:54:34

       No.

    4. MGMo Gawdat1:54:34

       Give them more yachts.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:54:36

       Okay.

    6. MGMo Gawdat1:54:36

       It costs nothing to make yachts when robots are making everything. So, so y- the complexity of this is so interesting, hmm? A world where it costs nothing to make everything.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:54:49

       Because energy is abundant and robots-

    8. MGMo Gawdat1:54:50

       Energy is abundant because every problem is solved with enormous IQ, okay? Because manufacturing is done through nanophysics, not through components, okay? Because mechanics are robotic, so you, you know, you drive your car in, a robot looks at it and fixes it, costs you a few cents of energy that are actually for free as well, hmm? The... Imagine a world where intelligence creates everything. That world literally, hmm, every human has anything they ask for, but we're not gonna choose that world.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:55:31

       Why?

    10. MGMo Gawdat1:55:31

        I- Ima- imagine you're in a world and, and really this is a very interesting thought experiment. Imagine that UBI became very expensive, universal basic income. So governments decided we're gonna put everyone in a one by three meters room, okay? We're gonna give them a headset and a sedative. Right? And we're gonna let them sleep. Every night they'll sleep for 23 hours, hmm, and we're gonna get them to live an entire lifetime. Hmm. They, you know, in that, in that virtual world at the speed of your brain when you're asleep, hmm, you're gonna have a life where you date Scarlett Johansson, and then another life where you're Nefertiti, and then another life where you're a donkey, right? Reincarnation truly in the virtual world. Hmm. And then, you know, I get another life when I date Hannah again and I, you know, enjoy that life tremendously, and basically the cost of all of this is zero. You wake up for one hour, you walk around, you move your blood, hmm, you eat something or you don't, and then you put the headset again and live again. Is that unthinkable? [laughs] It's creepy compared to this life. It's very, very doable.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:56:50

        What, that we just live in headsets?

    12. MGMo Gawdat1:56:52

        Do you, do you know if you're not?

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:56:54

        I don't know if I'm not, no.

    14. MGMo Gawdat1:56:55

        Yeah. You have no idea if you're not. I mean, every experience you've ever had in life was an electric s- electrical signal in your brain. Okay? Now, uh, now ask yourself, if we can create that in the virtual world, hmm, it wouldn't be a bad thing if I can create it in the physical world.

20. 1:57:17 – 2:14:00

    Do We Live in a Virtual Headset?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:57:17

       Maybe we already did and I-

    2. MGMo Gawdat1:57:19

       Uh, my theory is 98% we have, but that's a hypothesis, that's not science.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:57:25

       What, you think that-

    4. MGMo Gawdat1:57:26

       100, yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:57:27

       [laughs] You think we already created that and this is it?

    6. MGMo Gawdat1:57:30

       I think this is it, yeah. Think of any of the, think of the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, right? What you s- what you, what you observe gets, collapses the wave function and gets rendered into reality. Correct?

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:57:45

       I don't know anything about physics, so you're gonna have to-

    8. MGMo Gawdat1:57:46

       So, so quantum physics basically tells you that everything exists in superposition, right? So ev- every subatomic particle that ever existed has the chance to exist anywhere at any point in time, and then when it's observed by an observer, it collapses and becomes that. Okay? In- very interesting principle, exactly how video games are. In video games, you have the entire game world on the hard drive of your console, hmm. The player turns right, that part of the v- game world is rendered, the rest is in superposition.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:58:21

       Superposition meaning?

    10. MGMo Gawdat1:58:22

        Superposition means it's available to be rendered, but you have to observe it. The player has to turn to the other side and see it. Okay? I mean, think about the truth of physics, the truth of the fact that this is entirely empty space. These are tiny, tiny, tiny, I think, you know, almost nothing in terms of mass, hmm, but connected with, you know, enough energy so that my finger cannot go through my hand. But even when I hit this, hmm-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:58:54

        Your hand against your finger?

    12. MGMo Gawdat1:58:55

        Yeah. When I hit my hand against my finger, that sensation in my, in, is felt in my brain. It's an electrical signal that went through the wires. There is absolutely no way to differentiate that from a signal that can come to you through a, uh, Neuralink kind of interface, a, a computer-brain interface, a CBI, right? So, so, you know, the, a lot of those things are very, very, very possible. But the truth is, most of the world is not physical. Most of the world happens inside our imagination, our processors.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:59:30

        And it, and I guess it doesn't really matter to our, our reality.

    14. MGMo Gawdat1:59:33

        Doesn't at all. So this is the interesting bit. The interesting bit is it doesn't at all.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:59:37

        Because we still l- if this is a video game, we live with the consequence.

    16. MGMo Gawdat1:59:40

        This is your expe- yeah, this is your subjective experience of it.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:59:42

        Yeah.

    18. MGMo Gawdat1:59:43

        Yeah.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:59:43

        And there's consequence in this. I, I, I don't like pain.

    20. MGMo Gawdat1:59:46

        Correct.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:59:47

        And I like having orgasms as like [laughs]

    22. MGMo Gawdat1:59:49

        Yeah. And, and, and you're playing by the rule of the game.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:59:51

        Yeah.

    24. MGMo Gawdat1:59:51

        Right? And it, and it's quite interesting. And going back to a conversation we should have, it's the interesting bit is if I'm not the avatar, if I'm not this physical form, if I'm, if I'm the consciousness wearing the headset, what should I invest in? Should I invest in this video game, this level? Or should I, should I invest in the real avatar? In, in the real me and not the avatar, but the consciousness if you want, spirit if you're religious.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett2:00:23

        How would I invest in the consciousness or the God or the spirit or whatever? How would I? In the same way that if I was playing Grand Theft Auto the video game, the character in the game couldn't invest in me holding the controller.

    26. MGMo Gawdat2:00:34

        You, yes, but you can invest in yourself holding the controller.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett2:00:40

        Oh, okay. So, so you're saying that Mo Gawdat is in fact consciousness. And so how would consciousness invest in itself?

    28. MGMo Gawdat2:00:48

        By becoming more aware. So, so the-

    29. SBSteven Bartlett2:00:51

        Of its consciousness?

    30. MGMo Gawdat2:00:52

        Yeah. So real, real video gamers don't want to win the level. R- real video gamers don't want to, uh, to finish the level. Okay? Real video gamers have one objective and one objective only, which is to become better gamers. So e- so, uh, you know how serious I am about... I play Halo. I'm one, you know, two of every million players can beat me. That's how, what I rank, right? I'm very, for my age, phenomenal. Hey, anyone, right? But seriously, you know? And that's because I don't play. I mean, I practice 45 minutes a day, four times a week when I'm not traveling, and I practice with one single objective, which is to become a better gamer.
21. 2:14:00 – 2:25:03

    We Need Rules Around AI

    1. SBSteven Bartlett2:14:00

       To continue what Sam Altman's blog said, which he published a month, just over a month ago, he said, "The rate of technological progress will keep accelerating, and it will continue to be the case that people are capable of adapting to almost anything. There will be very hard parts, like whole classes of jobs going away, but on the other hand, the world will be getting so much richer so quickly that we'll be able to seriously entertain new policy ideas we never could have before. We probably won't adopt a new social contract all at once, but when we look back in a few decades, the gradual changes will have amounted in something big. If history is any guide, we'll figure out new things to do and new things to want and assimilate new tools quickly. Job change after the Industrial Revolution is a good recent example. Expectations will go up, but capabilities will go up equally quickly, and we'll all get better stuff."

    2. MGMo Gawdat2:14:53

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett2:14:53

       "We will build even more wonderful things for each other. People have a long-term important and curious advantage over AI. We are hardwired to care about other people and what they think and do, and we don't care very much about machines." And he ends this blog by saying, "May we scale smoothly, exponentially, and uneventfully through super intelligence."

    4. MGMo Gawdat2:15:18

       What a wonderful wish that assumes he has no control over it. May we have all the Altmans in the world help us scale gracefully and peacefully and uneventfully, right?

    5. SBSteven Bartlett2:15:33

       It sounds like a prayer.

    6. MGMo Gawdat2:15:34

       Yeah. May, may we have them take-

    7. SBSteven Bartlett2:15:38

       Please

    8. MGMo Gawdat2:15:38

       ... keep that in mind. I mean, think about it. I, I have a very interesting comment on what you just said. We will see exactly what he described there.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett2:15:49

       Mm-hmm.

    10. MGMo Gawdat2:15:49

        Right? Uh, the world will become richer, so much richer, but how will we redu- uh, distribute the riches? And I want you to imagine two camps, communist China and capitalist America. I want you to imagine what would happen in capitalist America if we have 30% unemployment.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett2:16:14

        There'll be social unrest.

    12. MGMo Gawdat2:16:16

        In the streets, right?

    13. SBSteven Bartlett2:16:17

        Yeah.

    14. MGMo Gawdat2:16:17

        And I want you to imagine if China lives true to caring for its nations and replaced every worker with a robot, what would it give its w- its, its citizens?

    15. SBSteven Bartlett2:16:28

        UBI?

    16. MGMo Gawdat2:16:29

        Correct. That is the ideological problem because in China's world today, hmm, the prosperity of every citizen is higher than the prosperity of the capitalist. In America today, the prosperity of the capitalist is higher than the prosperity of every citizen, and that's the tiny mind shift. That's a tiny mind shift, okay? Where, where the mind shift basically becomes, look, give the capitalists anything they want, all the money they want, all the yachts they want, everything they want.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett2:17:06

        So what's your conclusion there?

    18. MGMo Gawdat2:17:07

        I'm hoping the world will wake up.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett2:17:10

        What can ... You know, there's probably a couple of million people listening right now, maybe 5, maybe 10, maybe even 20 million people.

    20. MGMo Gawdat2:17:15

        No pressure, Steven.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett2:17:17

        No, the pressure to you, mate. I don't, I don't have the answers. [laughs]

    22. MGMo Gawdat2:17:20

        I don't know the answers either.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett2:17:21

        What, what should those people do?

    24. MGMo Gawdat2:17:24

        As I said, from a skills point of view for things, right, tools, uh, uh, con- human connection and double down on human connection. Leave your phone, go out and meet humans, okay?

    25. SBSteven Bartlett2:17:34

        Okay.

    26. MGMo Gawdat2:17:35

        Touch people, hmm? Uh, and, you know, do it respectfully.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett2:17:38

        With permission-

    28. MGMo Gawdat2:17:39

        With permission

    29. SBSteven Bartlett2:17:40

        ... and consent

    30. MGMo Gawdat2:17:40

        Right? Truth, stop believing the lies that you're told. Any sl- slogan that gets, you know, filled in your head, think about it four times. Understand where your ideologies are coming from. Simplify the truth, right? Truth is really, it boils down to, you know, simple, simple rules that we all know, okay? Which are all found in ethics.
22. 2:25:03 – 2:34:11

    The Fruit Salad Religion

    1. MGMo Gawdat2:25:03

       I'm very religious, yeah.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett2:25:04

       But you don't s- support a particular religion?

    3. MGMo Gawdat2:25:07

       I support, I ca- I [laughs] I follow what I call the fruit salad.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett2:25:10

       What's the fruit salad?

    5. MGMo Gawdat2:25:12

       You know, I, I, I came at a point in time and found that there were quite a few beautiful gold nuggets in every religion and a ton of crap, right? And so in my analogy to myself that was, like, 30 years ago, I said, "Look, it's like someone giving you a basket of apples, two good ones and four bad ones. Keep the good ones," right? And so basically I take two apples, two oranges, two strawberries, two bananas, and then I make a fruit salad. That's my view of religion.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett2:25:40

       You take from every religion the good parts.

    7. MGMo Gawdat2:25:41

       From everyone, and there are so many beautiful gold nuggets.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett2:25:44

       And you believe in a god?

    9. MGMo Gawdat2:25:46

       I 100% believe there is a divine being, yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett2:25:48

        A divine being.

    11. MGMo Gawdat2:25:49

        A designer, I call it. So if, if this was a video game, there is a game designer.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett2:25:56

        And y- you're not positing whether that's a, a man in the sky with a beard who's-

    13. MGMo Gawdat2:26:00

        Definitely not a man in the sky. A, a man in the, I mean, I, with all re- all due respect to re- you know, religions that believe that, uh- It's all of space time and everything in it is unlike everything outside space time. And so if some divine designer designs space time, it looks like nothing in space time. So it's not, it's not even physical in nature. It's not, it's not gendered. It's not bound by time. It's not, you know, these are all characters of the creation of space time

    14. SBSteven Bartlett2:26:31

        Do we need to believe in something transcendent like that to be happy, do you think?

    15. MGMo Gawdat2:26:35

        I have to say, uh, there are lots of evidence, hmm, that, uh, relating to someone bigger than yourself, uh, makes the journey a lot more interesting and a lot more rewarding

    16. SBSteven Bartlett2:26:49

        I've been thinking a lot about this idea that we need to level up like that. So level up from myself to like my family, to my community, to maybe my nation, to maybe the world, and then something transcendent

    17. MGMo Gawdat2:26:59

        That's the way it happens, yeah

    18. SBSteven Bartlett2:26:59

        And then if there's a level missing there, people seem to have some kind of dysfunction

    19. MGMo Gawdat2:27:03

        So, so, so imagine a world where when I was younger, I, I was born in Egypt, and for a very long time, the slogans I heard in Egypt made me believe I'm Egyptian, right? And then I went to Dubai and I said, "No, no, no, I'm a Middle Eastern." Hmm. And then in Dubai there were lots of, you know, uh, Pakistanis and Indonesians and so on. I said, "No, no, no, I'm part of the 1.4 billion Muslims." And by that logic, I immediately said, "No, no, I'm human. I'm part of everyone." Hmm. Imagine if you just suddenly say, "Oh, I'm divine. I'm part of universal consciousness." All beings, all living beings, including AI, if it ever becomes alive

    20. SBSteven Bartlett2:27:38

        And my dog

    21. MGMo Gawdat2:27:39

        And your dog. I'm, I'm part of all of this tapestry of beautiful interactions, hmm, that are a lot less serious than the balance sheets and equity profiles that we create, hmm, that are so simple. So simple in terms of, you know, people know that you and I know each other, so they always ask me, you know, "How is Steven like?" And I go like, "You may have a million expressions of him. I think he's a great guy." Right? You know, of course, I have opinions of you. You know, sometimes I go like, "Oh, too shrewd", right? Sometimes too ... You know, sometimes I go like, "Oh, too focused on the business." Fine, but core, if you really simplify it, great guy, right? And really, if we just look at life that way, it's so simple. It's so simple if we just stop all of those fights and all of those ideologies, hmm. It's so simple just living fully, loving, feeling compassion, you know, trying to find our happiness, not our success

    22. SBSteven Bartlett2:28:48

        I should probably go check on my dog [laughs]

    23. MGMo Gawdat2:28:50

        Go check on your dog.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett2:28:51

        Yeah [laughs]

    25. MGMo Gawdat2:28:51

        I'm really grateful for the time. We-

    26. SBSteven Bartlett2:28:53

        Thank you

    27. MGMo Gawdat2:28:54

        ... keep, we keep doing longer and longer

    28. SBSteven Bartlett2:28:55

        I know, I know. I just could- That's just so crazy how I could keep, just keep ta- Honestly, I could just keep talking and talking 'cause I have so many-

    29. MGMo Gawdat2:29:02

        [laughs]

    30. SBSteven Bartlett2:29:02

        I just love reflecting these questions onto you because, because of the way that you think so

Episode duration: 2:34:11