Chamath Palihapitiya on Joe Rogan: Why Attention Warps Tech

1. 0:00 – 0:02

   Intro

   1. SPSpeaker0:00

      [upbeat music]

2. 0:02 – 2:59

   UAP disclosure debate: aliens, ancient texts, and hiding under the ocean

   1. SPSpeaker0:02

      Joe Rogan Podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat music]

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Yeah, I was listening to Tim. First of all, hello.

   3. SPSpeaker0:15

      What's up?

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Good to see you, my friend.

   5. SPSpeaker0:16

      Great to see you.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Uh, we were listening to Tim Dillon. I, I was listening to it on the way over here, and he was talking about, uh, Ana Paulina Luna and Tim Burchett and-

   7. SPSpeaker0:25

      [laughs]

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:25

      ... Trump. They're all talking about the UAP disclosures, and, like, why now? Like, what are they doing? Like, why are they distracting us with this? Tim Burchett said that whatever they're going to release, it will be indigestible.

   9. SPSpeaker0:39

      What does that mean?

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Right.

   11. SPSpeaker0:41

       Indigestible as in... Or well, then it doesn't mean that it's real then.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:46

       Well, I think it means that it'll be so crazy-

   13. SPSpeaker0:49

       Yeah

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       ... if it's real, so crazy. He's the one that's been saying that there's these confirmed bases under the ocean, that there's these specific locations. I think he talked... You, you're shaking your head. You don't believe a word of it?

   15. SPSpeaker1:01

       No.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:02

       How come?

   17. SPSpeaker1:02

       I think, I think it's true that there... Look, it's completely implausible that there aren't other species.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:12

       Right.

   19. SPSpeaker1:12

       Completely implausible. In the-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       Just the vast-

   21. SPSpeaker1:14

       Just the vastness of what-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       Right

   23. SPSpeaker1:16

       ... we're dealing with. So the real question is, like, why haven't we encountered people or those things, those beings?

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:22

       Right.

   25. SPSpeaker1:23

       And it's probably because they just, they have bigger fish to fry, [laughs] you know? So by the time that we meet them and they meet us, we're, we're gonna kind of be at the edge of like we've, we've kind of been there, done that on our own planet, and then we've kind of, like, developed the technology, I guess, to get beyond it. Um, but somewhere along the way, there must have been a few. Just mathematically impossible. So then the question is, is it buried, or were people confused when it first came here? Like, if you had a spaceship land in, like, the 1800s-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:52

       Right

   27. SPSpeaker1:52

       ... what would people have done? They would've just freaked out. They wouldn't have understood it. Maybe they would've buried it. Depending on where it was, maybe they've started to pray to it.

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:00

       Right.

   29. SPSpeaker2:01

       And you would've just moved on. And then that isn't documented in history, so.

   30. JRJoe Rogan2:05

       But it is.
3. 2:59 – 7:06

   The “attention” meta-pattern: from Google and social feeds to modern AI

   1. SPSpeaker2:59

      Well, to be honest, as I get older, I'm convinced we're basically in some form of a simulation.

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:06

      Mm.

   3. SPSpeaker3:06

      There's, like, all these little ingredients that if you start to see these little clues, you're like, they all seem so odd in isolation, and then when you put them together, I feel like a crazy person, so I ignore myself.

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:18

      Right.

   5. SPSpeaker3:18

      But I wonder, like, why did this happen? Like, yesterday, I was, um, at a dinner in LA before I came to see you, and, um, I told this very interesting story. Well, or I thought it was interesting at the time. Um, you know that, like, i- so in 2000, right? If you think of, like, what happened in tech since 2000, so the last 26 years, people can give you all kinds of, like, fancy theories, but there's just, like, this weird word that's been at the center of every single technological revolution for the last 30 years, and that word is attention. Let me explain this to you. Google, they invent Google. What is Google? Google is a algorithm. It's called PageRank, but if you look inside of it, what is it? It says, well, Chamath's website has five links to it. Joe's website has two links. He's getting more attention, okay? Chamath's website is more important. That's the sum total of Google. Now, they've made that a lot more refined, and they've done all these other fancy things, but it's all about attention.

   6. JRJoe Rogan4:26

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SPSpeaker4:27

      Fast-forward to 2007, '8, '9, when, you know, Zuck, and then when I went to work for Zuck, and we got on the scene, we're like, "What do everybo- what does everybody care about?" Attention. And so what is, like, the Facebook algorithm? What's the Instagram algorithm? You know, how do we construct news feed? All around attention. Joe had 35 likes. Jamie had 12 likes. Your thing is more important. Let's give it more, more importance because it's seemingly meeting all these human needs. Attention, attention, attention. So phase one, attention. Phase two, attention. And this is where I'm like, how can this be possible? In phase three, we're, like, looking at AI, and when you look backwards four years, the seminal paper is called Attention Is All You Need. It's about this word again. And when you look inside of the core part, if you peel out, peel, you know, apart AI, the little brain that makes it so capable is called an attention mechanism. It's just attention. It's all about, again, this idea of I'm gonna scour all this information, and I'm gonna figure out what patterns repeat itself, and I'm just gonna double down on the stuff that I see more of because that attention must mean it's more important, it's more true, it's more knowledgeable. And then I think, how could it be? Like, we're all... Like, why is it that these things are just repeating over and over again? And I just get confused. I don't, I don't exactly know how to explain it. So are there other ways in which we should be doing things? Absolutely. Have we even explored it? No. So then I think, well, is this just a simulation? Some [laughs] kid in fucking, in his house just playing some simulation, and we're all just party to it, and that's all he understands is attention?I don't know

   8. JRJoe Rogan6:05

      I don't think it's that simple, that there's a person playing a game. But if you break down just attention, well, that's all of human history is paying attention to the king, paying attention to the war, paying attention to resources, paying attention to who says the thing that resonates the most with the people. It's all about what human beings are paying attention to.

   9. SPSpeaker6:31

      I think it's part of it. Then there's also what is actually true. And I think sometimes what is true and what people pay attention to are not the same thing.

   10. JRJoe Rogan6:40

       True. Yeah.

   11. SPSpeaker6:41

       And sometimes the thing that you should be paying attention to gets lost because the thing that you are paying attention to gets more attention because it's more interesting and useful. That's sort of where we are right now. We're in this really weird phase, I think, where you actually, like, should be focused on this thing over here, and instead we're all focused on all these things over here.

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:04

       Oh, give me an example.

4. 7:06 – 16:19

   What society is missing: the broken labor–capital compact and a proposed tax flip

   1. SPSpeaker7:06

      Um, here's, like, a very big one. I think, like, it's pretty fair to say since the last time you and I saw each other on this show, the attitude towards technology, I think, has been pretty profoundly negative. It's kind of tilted. It's relatively, like, anti-AI, you know, anti-billionaires. It's anti all of this stuff. Um, and it manifests in all of these interesting ways. There's protests, there's data centers, there's all of this stuff that's happening. Um, people are worried about job loss. All of that stuff is real.

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:45

      Do you want a cigar?

   3. SPSpeaker7:46

      No, I'm okay, I'm okay. Um, but what should they really be focused upon? And I think what they should be really focused upon is we're at the tail end of a cycle that doesn't work anymore, which is all about, like, this tension between labor, people that do the work, and capital, the people that fund it and then make all the returns. And over the last 40 years, we've basically gotten to this completely upside-down world where capital extracts all of the upside, and labor has extracted less and less and less and less. And all of this pushback, it manifests in AI, it manifests in politics, it manifests in social issues, it manifests in, you know, Israel. Whatever you want to talk about, all of these issues I think symptomologically come from this other issue, which is we are out of balance. This total compact that we used to have, a liberal democracy and a free market, has totally collapsed. And there are simple ways to fix that, but that never gets the attention because it's not what you want to talk about. The attention is here. Sh- you know, s- vote no to the data center. You know, uh, this model is gonna take out all the jobs. Um, you know, this social issue is really important. That war should not be fought. That war should be fought. All of these things, while important, distract us from what the core issue is, and the core issue is that we as a society, I think, are out of balance. The, the natural compact between all of us is broken, and there are some simple ways to fix that compact. Get people more invested, get people more engaged in the upside, have people have a positive sum view of what's happening, and that isn't happening.

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:27

      Well, what, what simple solutions are there to, to this one very particular issue?

   5. SPSpeaker9:33

      Okay, I'll get your reaction to this. Let's assume that you still lived in California, 'cause I think it, it tells this example in a more extreme way.

   6. JRJoe Rogan9:40

      Okay.

   7. SPSpeaker9:41

      Um, let's say you make a million bucks a year, which is a lot of money, but it, it makes the, it makes the point more cleanly. Um, you'd pay, I think, 30% federal tax, and you'd pay another 15 or 16% in state tax and Medicare tax and all this tax. So if you're a wage earner, 50% of all your upside goes to the government. If you're a capital earner and you make that same million dollars via capital gains, you pay half that tax. Why did that happen? That happened because in the '40s and '50s, but really in the '60s and '70s and '80s, what we were trying to do, or what the American government and what Western societies were trying to do, was to convince people to invest their money. "Hey, Joe, go build that factory. Go hire those people, and we're gonna incentivize you to do so." And by doing that, there was this idea that, that all of those profits that you would get would then diffuse, right, trickle down into everybody else. The workers participated, everybody participated. But technology allows you to do more with less and less. So now what happens is the capital owners can accrue w- infinite almost, it seems like, value, and the workers get less and less. But now if you get less and less and you're taxed more and more as a percentage of what you own, you're gonna feel really out of sorts. You're gonna be like, "Why am I paying 50 cents of every dollar? And I see these other ways where folks are paying 25 cents on their dollars, but their dollars are compounding way faster, and they have, you know, hundreds of billions more of those dollars than I have of my dollars." If you take that example and you expand it across society, I think people understand that now. There's enough information, and there's enough people talking about it, where it's pretty clear that that's happened. So the question is, how do you fix it? I think, like, if you think about AI, and if you believe that we're gonna get into this world of abundance and we're not working, what does it mean for governments to tax our labor? There is no labor. You're not working anymore. I'm not working. We're doing things out of leisure. Why should I pay 50 cents of every dollar? Why aren't the companies that are going to be making trillions of dollars, why don't they pay more?Why isn't there, you know, an expectation that they then help our lived society do better and thrive as a result of all of that winning? That's the real conversation that I think is bubbling, and I think that we're probably another 12 to 18 months where all of these other issues are going to be important, but they're gonna be viewed for, for what they are. Um, they're gonna get demoted, I think, in importance, and it's this core structural issue. It's what is the economic relationship that we have together as a society? What is the relationship between Joe, Chamath, Jamie, and all these companies, and how do we feel about a few, and an ever-shrinking few, making more and more and more? And then, and then how do we feel about their ability to share that with a small amount of people? And then what d- what is the expectation for everybody else? I think that's mostly at the core of what's happening. And so back to, like, you know, all of this attention that we give to these other issues distracts from that one, because I think you can get organized to fix this issue. You can't get consensus on any of these issues.

   8. JRJoe Rogan13:23

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SPSpeaker13:23

      You know, you bring up Israel, it's like this. You bring up social issues, it's like this. You bring up, you know, whatever you wanna bring up, people just kind of take a side, nothing happens. This is actually where people are universally actually much more aligned than you'd think, because there's reasonable ways. One simple way was, is you'd say, "Well, let's flip the taxation model." Corporate taxes should exceed personal taxes. They've never. We should have an expectation that then corporate actors can buy down their taxes if they want, but if they do social good for society. I'll give you an example. At the Industrial Revolution, there's a table like this, and the leading lights of that era, Andrew Carnegie, Nelson Rockefeller, Jay Gould, JP Morgan, they sat together and they said, "Guys, this is gonna benefit us, this Industrial Revolution. It may not benefit everybody. What is our responsibility? What is our collective responsibility?" And they allocated tasks. Carnegie went and built libraries all throughout the country. Rockefeller built universities. Hospitals were built. And I think what happened is society was like, "Wow, these are living testaments to us doing well." And so then they were okay with this transition. But if you think about it today, what are the living tributes that, you know, capital builds and leaves behind for society? It's fewer and fewer.

   10. JRJoe Rogan14:56

       Hmm.

   11. SPSpeaker14:57

       That's, I think that's a, that's a very big opportunity for somebody to fill. It, it, I think it's like, especially f- for folks in tech, I think. If they can get themselves organized to do that, I think we, we land in a good place. If they cannot get themselves organized to do that and say e- everyone for themselves, I think it's gonna be really complicated, super messy.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:20

       Super messy, because-

   13. SPSpeaker15:21

       Super messy

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:22

       ... that sentiment that the wealthy are getting wealthier, and the middle class is disappearing, and the poor are being taxed into oblivion-

   15. SPSpeaker15:30

       Well, look, an $80,000 a year teacher pays 40% tax, but if you're a multi-billionaire, most of your wealth is not W2 wages. It's cap gains. But there's all kinds of ways to shelter cap gains. There's all kinds of ways to defer. And so even though you pay more on an absolute dollar basis, on a percentage basis, you're paying way, way less. And all of those tricks have been exposed. They've all been exposed. These are all mechanisms that were in, that were, you know, invented from the 1980s to now, right, by all the, by all the banks and all the folks that wanted to come to folks that had wealth, and so it's, it's, and it's all known, and I think people are kind of like, "Hey, hold on a second. This just doesn't feel fair anymore."

5. 16:19 – 21:53

   Rogan’s rebuttal: government incompetence, NGO leakage, and why trust is collapsing

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:19

      Absolutely. But the other problem with that is if you do tax correctly, where does that money go, and who's managing it? And ultimately, who's managing it is the federal government, and they've been shown to be completely inept at managing your money correctly. The fraud and the waste is off the charts. The amount of NGOs that have insane amount of funds at their disposal. I mean, all this is exposed by Doge, right? And you realize, like, how much fraud and waste there is-

   2. SPSpeaker16:53

      Yeah

   3. JRJoe Rogan16:53

      ... and how much money. So the solution being tax people more-

   4. SPSpeaker16:58

      Mm-hmm

   5. JRJoe Rogan16:59

      ... that doesn't sit with a lot of people, because it's like, well, where, where is it going, and who's managing it? If, if the federal government was being forced to handle money the same way a private company does, if it was all o- out in the open, everything was exposed, they would've gone bankrupt a long time ago.

   6. SPSpeaker17:19

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan17:19

      They would've gone under a long time ago.

   8. SPSpeaker17:21

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan17:21

      There's no way they would've been allowed to function the way they are. The people that are managing that money would've all been put in jail.

   10. SPSpeaker17:28

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan17:29

       There's not a chance in hell that giving them more money is gonna solve anything. They're gonna find more ways to put more of that money into NGOs, that puts more of that money into Democratic coffers and Republican coffers. They're gonna figure out a way to f- funnel that money around where it's not gonna benefit people. I mean, a good example of that is, like, where... Uh, uh, let's, let's look at the LA fire thing, for instance. All right, so the LA Fire Fund, there's a giant-

   12. SPSpeaker17:58

       Yeah

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:58

       ... fire in the Palisades. All this money gets raised. It's over $800 million. It goes to 200 plus different nonprofits.None of it goes to the people.

   14. SPSpeaker18:10

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan18:10

       Spencer Pratt, who's running for mayor of Los Angeles, regardless-

   16. SPSpeaker18:13

       Who's doing a great job, by the way.

   17. JRJoe Rogan18:14

       Fucking phenomenal.

   18. SPSpeaker18:16

       Those ads are un-

   19. JRJoe Rogan18:16

       Those ads are-

   20. SPSpeaker18:17

       Unbelievable

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:18

       ... fire. [laughs]

   22. SPSpeaker18:18

       They're fire.

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:19

       They're so good.

   24. SPSpeaker18:20

       They're fire.

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:21

       And he's doing, and he's doing it all out of a trailer-

   26. SPSpeaker18:23

       Yeah

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:23

       ... on his burnt out land.

   28. SPSpeaker18:25

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:25

       I mean, he's the most righteous guy running, in that regard. But just that being exposed. Like, okay, we're gonna help out these people, we're gonna donate money, we're gonna raise money, we're gonna do some good. We feel terrible about the people in our community that have lost homes. Well, what happens? Well, the same people that you're saying we should give more taxes to take that money and they just give it to a bunch of-

   30. SPSpeaker18:49

       No, no, hold on
6. 21:53 – 26:29

   Tech as a shadow government: curated search, narrative control, and election influence

   1. JRJoe Rogan21:53

      I think people do have this weird feeling of dread that the people that are in control of a lot in this country, the, the tech companies in particular, particularly the tech companies like Google and Facebook that are essentially involved in data collection and then ultimately dissemination of information, that they have acquired enormous amounts of wealth and power and influence, and they're essentially a new form of the government.

   2. SPSpeaker22:25

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan22:26

      You know, are you aware of Robert Epstein? Do you know about his work?

   4. SPSpeaker22:30

      Not Robert Epstein. [laughs]

   5. JRJoe Rogan22:31

      No, different guy. Different guy.

   6. SPSpeaker22:32

      I had no idea. [laughs]

   7. JRJoe Rogan22:33

      Um, Robert Epstein is a guy who specializes in, uh, understanding what curated search results do and what-

   8. SPSpeaker22:42

      Okay

   9. JRJoe Rogan22:43

      ... Google's able to do with, in particular, with curated search results in terms of influencing elections. That, like, say if you, you have two candidates that are running. Let's just say, b- b- let's just take LA, for instance. If, uh, I'm not making any accusations, but I'm saying if they wanted Karen Bass to win and you searched Karen Bass, you would find all these positive results.

   10. SPSpeaker23:07

       Positive results, right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan23:07

       If you searched Spencer Pratt, you would find all these negative results, and there's a bunch of people that are always undecided voters, and those are the ones that you really want. They're like, "I don't know. I don't know." And come election night, those are the people you wanna try to grab, and it's, it's generally a large percentage. You can influence an enormous percentage of those people just with search results.

   12. SPSpeaker23:29

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan23:29

       Where you can shift an election one way or another.

   14. SPSpeaker23:32

       I believe it.

   15. JRJoe Rogan23:32

       Yeah, and he's demonstrated this and shown how this is possible. Um, that freaks people out, that c- tech companies are in control of narratives, that tech companies can censor information, especially tech companies that work in conjunction with the government.

   16. SPSpeaker23:50

       Right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan23:50

       And this is what we found out when Elon purchased Twitter, right?

   18. SPSpeaker23:53

       Right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan23:53

       When El- Elon purchased Twitter, we got all this information from the Twitter files when all the journalists were allowed to go through it, and they said, "Oh, this is crazy." You've got the FBI, the CIA, you've got all these companies or all these government organizations that are essentially d-... controlling the narrative of free speech in the country, and they're doing it in a way that benefits them. They're doing it in a way that benefits what political party's in charge.

   20. SPSpeaker24:18

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan24:18

       At the time, it was the Biden administration, and they were allowed to do a bunch of weird shit, which, which should be illegal, but it's not technically illegal.

   22. SPSpeaker24:27

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan24:27

       And that freaks people out because there's no real laws and rules in regard to what they're allowed to do and what they're not allowed to do. Like, curated search results should be illegal. It should-

   24. SPSpeaker24:37

       They're shaping attention.

   25. JRJoe Rogan24:38

       Yes.

   26. SPSpeaker24:39

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan24:40

       Attention. Again, it goes back to attention, right?

   28. SPSpeaker24:42

       They're shaping attention.

   29. JRJoe Rogan24:43

       Yeah. Um, it's, that's a big concern for people, and I think then when you find out that these people are able to amass enormous sums of wealth and have incredible amount of power and influence because of this enormous of, enormous wealth and this control over these tech companies that have essentially become the town square of the world.

   30. SPSpeaker25:05

       Yeah.
7. 26:29 – 29:20

   AI and the classroom: shrinking attention spans, cheating, and parenting overload

   1. JRJoe Rogan26:29

      'Cause it's, w- what we're dealing with with AI right now is, first of all, it's already lowered children's attention spans, and it's shrinking their capacity to acquire or a- absorb information. Because what they're doing now is just relying on AI to answer all their questions for them.

   2. SPSpeaker26:49

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan26:49

      Now, is that their fault? Kind of. Right? Because it doesn't have to be that way.

   4. SPSpeaker26:53

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan26:53

      You could still acquire information the old-fashioned way. You could still learn things the right way, but a lot of kids are just concerned with passing examinations and getting into good schools, and what they're doing is just using AI.

   6. SPSpeaker27:03

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan27:04

      And they're, they're getting better test results, but they're also not as smart.

   8. SPSpeaker27:08

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan27:09

      Which is really weird.

   10. SPSpeaker27:10

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan27:10

       It's like we're relying on it like we, you know, it's like it's essentially like replacing our mind, and that's just the, this is the beginning. This is, like-

   12. SPSpeaker27:25

       This is the beginning of the beginning

   13. JRJoe Rogan27:26

       ... we're, these are the toddler days-

   14. SPSpeaker27:28

       Yeah

   15. JRJoe Rogan27:28

       ... of AI.

   16. SPSpeaker27:29

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan27:29

       And to where it's going to be a super athlete-

   18. SPSpeaker27:32

       Yeah

   19. JRJoe Rogan27:32

       ... in a few years.

   20. SPSpeaker27:33

       Yeah. I think we have to figure out how, first of all, kids need to learn, and I think this is where, like, we have to do a better job as parents. Kids need to learn how to be resilient thinkers. I don't even know what that term meant before, but I know what it means now, which is, like, you take this AI slop, and you just kind of, like, pass it off. And if, like, the teachers in the school system aren't trained, they're just like, "Wow, this looks good." They have to be able to push back. Parents need to be able to look at this shit. But then all of this stuff, I'm just, like, so frustrated 'cause it's like one more thing that I have to do as a parent. Like-

   21. JRJoe Rogan28:06

       Right

   22. SPSpeaker28:06

       ... every time technology gets better, it's one more thing, you know?

   23. JRJoe Rogan28:09

       Right.

   24. SPSpeaker28:10

       We're gonna make the world, you know, super connected and social and all of that stuff. It sounds great to me until I have to be the one that has to tell my kid I can't, they can't get Instagram.

   25. JRJoe Rogan28:18

       [laughs]

   26. SPSpeaker28:18

       And then they're up my ass every day.

   27. JRJoe Rogan28:20

       Right.

   28. SPSpeaker28:20

       You know? And it's just like, I don't want to have to deal with this stuff.

   29. JRJoe Rogan28:24

       Right.

   30. SPSpeaker28:24

       I want this to be handled in a way that just allows me to do what I want to do. I don't wanna say no to my kid. I don't wanna police his schoolwork and make sure he's not cheating or not learning and just, like, you know, passing off this AI slop. What am I... Where are all my tax dollars going? W- where is everybody else in all of this? It gets very frustrating. And again, it goes back to, like, this feeling of like, well, is this all getting better for me? Or is this [laughs] kind of like not... You know, people start to be nostalgic-
8. 29:20 – 34:12

   White-collar job loss, data-center backlash, and why AI needs a positive public case

   1. SPSpeaker29:20

      Did you see this thing, um, it's the CEO of Verizon, Dan Schulman? He put out this very public forecast. You know, very smart guy, well-regarded in business, and I think he said something like 30% of all white collar jobs will be gone by 2030. I don't know, Jamie, maybe you can get the exact thing, but it's something like that.

   2. JRJoe Rogan29:39

      That's probably optimistic.

   3. SPSpeaker29:41

      And I thought, at first, my initial reaction was like, "This is totally not credible." But then I'm like, hold on a second. That's my bias, 'cause I wanna believe that that's not possible.

   4. JRJoe Rogan29:49

      [laughs]

   5. SPSpeaker29:50

      Honestly.

   6. JRJoe Rogan29:51

      Right. Right.

   7. SPSpeaker29:51

      You know? And as I've gotten older, I've, I, I'm a little bit better now of like, okay, hold on a second. Let's weigh the probabilities. And now I was like, man, if I'm gonna be fair, maybe there's a 10, 20% chance of that. There's a bunch of other outcomes that are much better than that, but that's part of the set of outcomes that you have to consider. And then I was like, well, what's my antidote to that? My, and, and the only thing that I can say is, "Don't worry, it's gonna be betterI don't think that that's a good answer.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:20

      No.

   9. SPSpeaker30:21

      So there has to be... Like all of this kind of goes back to, look, my wife and I had this conversation. We're like, if it were up to us, who's- who can you trust to have some super intelligence? Now we're biased 'cause we're friends with him, but the only person that we can trust is Elon, 'cause he seems to be like he has a bigger... Like it's kind of like he's like over there. He's like, "I need to get to Mars."

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:46

       Right.

   11. SPSpeaker30:46

       You know? "And I'm gonna first terraform the Moon, but then I'm going to Mars, and I'm gonna build like a fucking magnetic catapult [laughs] to like do all this shit. And so I just need this thing." I feel like he's the least corruptible.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:01

       He's the most independent thinking.

   13. SPSpeaker31:03

       And I think he's the one that has an actual empathy for people. Then there are folks where there's just a in- insane profit motive.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:11

       Right.

   15. SPSpeaker31:11

       They're less in control of the businesses that they run. Those businesses are really out over their ski tips in the amount of money they've gotten from Wall Street and other folks who expect a return, who will put a ton of pressure on these folks. And if they get there first, I don't know where the chips fall. We don't really know. We can kinda guess, and then you see in the press just enough snippets of their reactions in certain moments where you're like, "Hey, hold on a second. Question mark here," you know? You see OpenAI react one way, you see Anthropic react another way, and you're like, "Where is this gonna end up?" And the honest answer is nobody really knows. So it comes back to like we need a few people that can organize. Those guys need to self-organize and actually present a really positive face, and they need to show why those 20% of outcomes that, uh, Dan Schulman paints, the truth is it's possible, but here's why it's pro- not probable.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:09

       But it's not in their best interest to do that-

   17. SPSpeaker32:11

       Why not?

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:11

       ... because it's in their best interest to generate the most amount of money possible. That's the obligation they have to their shareholders. That's the obligation to they have the people that have invested money in this company. They- their obligation is not to make sure the white-collar jobs stay in the same place that they are now.

   19. SPSpeaker32:27

       That's not, that's not true.

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:28

       No?

   21. SPSpeaker32:28

       No. I, I actually think their incentive should very clearly be to tell people with details and facts why there's a positive future, and the reason is the following. Right now, there's a vacuum. There are no facts, and there's fear-mongering, and then there's this belief that this is gonna be cataclysmic to human productivity and white-collar labor and all of this stuff.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:51

       Right.

   23. SPSpeaker32:51

       What's people's natural reaction? Well, today, if you look at it, think about AI as a very simple equation. Energy in, intelligence out. So if you wanna cut the head of the snake, what do you do? You cut off the energy supply, right?

   24. JRJoe Rogan33:05

       Okay.

   25. SPSpeaker33:06

       If you're afraid-

   26. JRJoe Rogan33:07

       Right

   27. SPSpeaker33:07

       ... of all of this super intelligence coming-

   28. JRJoe Rogan33:09

       Mm-hmm

   29. SPSpeaker33:09

       ... the natural thing to do would, would be to go to the point of energy and unplug it. What is the equivalent of unplugging it today? It is to go all around the country, find the data centers, protest them, and get them to be mothballed. That is an incredibly successful strategy right now. Today, about 40% of all of these data centers that get protested get mothballed. So-

   30. JRJoe Rogan33:38

       You're talking about emerging data centers.
9. 34:12 – 48:11

   Where AI helps most: cancer detection, surgical guidance, and drug design breakthroughs

   1. SPSpeaker34:12

      they see because AI, differently than search or differently than social media, there's no exchange of value. Let me, let me explain what that means. So let me just go like... So the first thing is that if you can go and actually show people, here's an example of AI. I, I, I heard about this last night. It's pretty incredible. You can now take pictures of a woman's fallopian tubes, and you can see pre-cancer, ovarian cysts and all of this stuff, cervical cancer before it forms, and then you can intervene, and you can fix it so that, you know, women don't get cervical cancer. In a different example, I t- actually t- I told you about this example when I was here before. I finally got FDA approval, okay? There is a device now that is allowed to be in the operating room with you, and if you have a cancerous lesion or a tumor inside of your body, the most important thing when they go to take it out is make sure you don't leave any cancer behind. You couldn't do it because what would happen is you'd take it out, a doctor is, Joe, is literally fucking eyeballing it and saying, "Yeah." They send it to a pathologist. You get an answer in 10 days. For women with breast cancer, a third of these women find out that they have cancer left behind. They go back in. They scoop some more stuff out. A third of those women, okay? So I'm like, "This is bullshit. We can solve this problem." But it took us a long time, a lot of money. I had to build an entire machine m- imaging all of this stuff, AI algorithms. We had to prove it all. We finally get approval, okay? But you know how hard it is to tell that story in all of the attention that people are looking for? It's hard, but those are positive examples. No more breast cancer. No more cervical cancer. A different example is most drugs in pharma fail, right? And it's a very complicated problem in pharma. It's kind of like a jigsaw puzzle of the ultimate complexity. It's like think of your human body as like a Himalayan mountain range.You have to design a drug that's an equivalent Himalayan mountain range that plugs into it perfectly. One millimeter off, y- you grow like a fourth eye, a third nipple, you die, you know? Now you can use computers to make sure that that drug, hand in glove to your body, solves the exact problem. Couldn't do that before. So there's all of these body of examples, and you're probably only hearing them superficially at best. That should be 99% of the attention, is showing all of the constructive, tactical ways in which our lives will be better. Your mom, your daughter, your wife, us, Jamie, his family, everybody.

   2. JRJoe Rogan37:08

      Right.

   3. SPSpeaker37:08

      That's the number one thing. Nobody talks about it. I don't understand why.

   4. JRJoe Rogan37:12

      Well, I think 'cause people are terrified of losing their jobs, so that's the primary concern. The primary concern that I hear from people is that there's so many people that are going to school right now, college students, that don't know if their job is going to even exist in four years when they graduate.

   5. SPSpeaker37:27

      And that's the second part of, I think, what this industry has to do better. There's a... I had, uh, lunch with Jeffrey Katzenberg. He told this crazy story. I'll, I'll tell you. It's a... Steve Jobs gets kicked out of Apple. Um, he buys, he starts NeXT, and he buys Pixar from George Lucas. But then he hits a rough patch and he's got this, you know, financing issue. Katzenberg flies up, spends time with Steve Jobs, says, "I'll buy Pixar." Jobs says, "Absolutely not." And then Katzenberg proposes a deal, and he's like, "Uh, how about a three-picture deal?" Jobs says, "Okay." He flies back, and apparently all the animators were up in arms because they're like, "Hold on a second. Steve Jobs is gonna use these NeXT computers to animate this movie," which ultimately became, I think, Toy Story. And they're like, "This is gonna put all of us out of a job." That perfect argument. And people were really upset. Roy Disney was upset, all the animators were upset, and they all went to Mike Eisner, and they were like, "Michael, you need to fire Katzenberg." And they had a deal which was like, "Look, man, you do you, but just give me the ability to say no if I think that this is, you're about to jump off a cliff." They talk about it and he's like, "I got your back. Do the deal. Make the movie." They made the movie. It was a huge success. Fast-forward 10 years, 15 years, there's 10x the number of animators. Now, it's a small example, but why is that? You were able to use computers, and now all these new people were able to come and participate in that. I get it, it's a small example. But I think if we had better organized leadership, and we could try to tell some of these examples, try to go back and document how some of these things have actually helped people, it expanded the pie, there's a chance. But if we don't, I agree with you. Where we're gonna end up is everybody basically saying, "Hey, hold on a second. This is crazy. We need to stop this." That's the worst outcome because that's when you will have the hi- a high risk of a dislocation. Like, the worst outcome, like the bla- what's the black swan event, right? Let's think about the bla- the black swan event is when you get a model that's good enough to automate a bunch of labor, but not good enough that it can build new drugs and prevent cancer and make you live for 200 years and all of this other stuff, right? So there's, like, a gap, right? And if you can stop it here and it doesn't get to there, now you do have the worst of all worlds. You have this thing that kind of displaces labor. No new things come after it because we stop innovating, and that's like a, that's like a nontrivial possibility now, I think.

   6. JRJoe Rogan40:15

      No, it's a huge possibility. And then there's also this thing that you brought up earlier where we have this place of abundance where no one has to work anymore. That freaks people out.

   7. SPSpeaker40:24

      I think that's a big problem.

   8. JRJoe Rogan40:26

      Well, because if no one has to work anymore, first of all, what, what, what is your identity, right?

   9. SPSpeaker40:32

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan40:32

       Because so many people, their identity is what they do, whatever it is. If you're a lawyer, if you're an accountant, if you run a business, whatever it is, this is your identity. You know, you have built this thing. You look forward to going there. You work at it. You look forward to doing a good job and getting rewarded for it. The harder you work, the more you get paid. There's all these incentives built in, and then there's this, again, identity problem. If all of a sudden you have universal high income, which is what Elon always talks about, well, what gives people purpose then?

   11. SPSpeaker41:06

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan41:06

       Like, what... And also, if you have a person who's entire- they're, you know, 43 years old, and their entire life they've worked towards this idea that the harder they work, the harder they think, the more innovative they are, and the, the better they are at implementing these ideas, the more they get rewarded. And then all of a sudden, that's not necessary anymore. "Mike, time for you to just relax and do what you want to do." And Mike's like, "Well, this is what I do. Uh, this, I, I don't have any fucking hobbies. I, I enjoy doing what I do, and now what I do is completely useless, and now I am on a fixed income." Even if that fis- fixed income is a million dollars a year, whatever it is.

   13. SPSpeaker41:44

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan41:45

       If all of a sudden you are in this position where everything is being run by computers, you feel useless. You feel like, "What am I doing? I'm just, I'm just taking money? I'm on high welfare?"

   15. SPSpeaker41:56

       Right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan41:57

       Like, what do I do?

   17. SPSpeaker41:58

       Right. I think that that's a really important question to answer. I don't know. Like-

   18. JRJoe Rogan42:01

       Some people are gonna write books. Some people are gonna do art. Some people are gonna-

   19. SPSpeaker42:05

       Well, before-

   20. JRJoe Rogan42:05

       ... find things to do, but-

   21. SPSpeaker42:06

       But what do you think, what do you think we would've done if, if we were... Go back to the 1800s example. There was no office culture. You know, there's no, like, ladder to climb. How did people find meaning then?

   22. JRJoe Rogan42:24

       Well, they had jobsPeople still did things. If you're a farmer, you, you had meaning in your labor and what you did in keeping the animals alive and your chores, and there's people that find great satisfaction in doing that.

   23. SPSpeaker42:37

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan42:37

       You know, you have all these animals that rely on you. You have people that rely on you for the food that you generate. There's, there's meaning there. It doesn't have to be an office to be something that gives you purpose and meaning. But when all that is animated, then what happens? 'Cause then you have no purpose-

   25. SPSpeaker42:53

       No purpose

   26. JRJoe Rogan42:53

       ... no meaning other than recreational activities. Now, if everybody just starts playing chess and doing a bunch of things that they really enjoy, I mean, look, there's people that would love to just play chess.

   27. SPSpeaker43:04

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan43:04

       You know?

   29. SPSpeaker43:05

       Like eight people.

   30. JRJoe Rogan43:06

       I don't know about that. I think if people really got into it, I mean, there's a lot of people that get addicted to whatever their recreation is, like golf or whatever it is. For me, it's playing pool. You know, if you told me I never have to ma- make any more money, I could just play pool all day, I might just play pool all day. But I don't know how many people think that way. I don't know how many people would be able to find meaning and purpose in a recreational activity. There's so many people where their entire being is focused around productivity and generating more wealth.
10. 48:11 – 1:03:23

    AI for government efficiency: translating legacy code, plugging leaks, and shrinking budgets

    1. JRJoe Rogan48:11

       Well, let's, let's go back to what we were talking about earlier with, uh, taxes and the fact that you're giving money to a broken system. Do you think it's possible that AI could show benefit in that they can analyze all the data which would be virtually impossible for even an office filled with human beings paying attention to all of it?And they could analyze where all the money goes and eliminate all the fraud and waste.

    2. SPSpeaker48:39

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan48:39

       Like, recognize it instantaneously.

    4. SPSpeaker48:42

       Yes.

    5. JRJoe Rogan48:42

       That would be a great benefit and a way to make it so that your taxes directly benefit people.

    6. SPSpeaker48:50

       I'll give you one example of this. So two years ago, um, you know, like every few years I'll s- I, I make, I invest, but every few years I'll start something 'cause I feel strongly about it. And there's an effort that I made to look at all of this old code. Like, if you think about the world, the world runs on software, right? Like, even though you and I are talking, [laughs] it's piping into Jamie's computer.

    7. JRJoe Rogan49:19

       Right, it's all software.

    8. SPSpeaker49:19

       It's a cord. It's all software. Then it goes to Spotify, they pump in some ads, they pu- it's all software.

    9. JRJoe Rogan49:23

       Right.

    10. SPSpeaker49:23

        Software runs everything. What percentage of that do you think is kind of poorly written? I'm gonna say probably 80 to 90% of it.

    11. JRJoe Rogan49:34

        Really?

    12. SPSpeaker49:35

        Oh, yeah. Oh, it's riddled with errors, it's riddled with mistakes. The fact that so many companies exist is an artifact of the fact that the thing that came before it isn't working. Like, if you got it right the first time, it would just kind of move and go. So-

    13. JRJoe Rogan49:51

        How so? What do you mean by that?

    14. SPSpeaker49:53

        So normally if you, if you were like, "Chamath, I wanna build a system that does A, B, and C-"

    15. JRJoe Rogan49:58

        Right

    16. SPSpeaker49:58

        ... if I was designing it properly, I would sit there with you and I would meticulously write down, "All right, Joe wants to do this. What are the implications? Joe wants to do that. What are the implications?" And I would actually write a document that was in English before a single line of code has been written. This was the... When you have to design something that can't fail, so for example, like, if you and I are designing something for the FAA or for, you know, I hate to say this example 'cause it turned out to not ex- but, like, you know, to fly a plane, right? You are first there to write in English, and the reason is because everybody can then swarm that document and see the holes, okay? And it's only then when that stuff looks complete and functional do you build. We turned that upside down. Over the last 30 years, people in computing invented all kinds of ways to shortcut that process. And you can say, "Well, why did they do that?" Because it would allow you to build something faster, make more money quickly, and then build more business. So the direct response to, "Hey, it's gonna take us nine months to write down the rules," was somebody else showed up and says, "Fuck it, I'll just grip and rip this thing. I'll be done in four months." Who's gonna get the job? The, the four-month guy's gonna get the job. So we've had 30 or 40 years of that. What are we learning about that process? It's riddled with software errors, like logic errors. It's riddled with security errors. I don't know if you saw this whole thing, like, with Anthropic Mythos. What are they uncovering? They're uncovering that we wrote a lot of really shitty code for 40 years. So that body of n- of old code, I was like, "Guys, if we're gonna really figure out how to do all of this, we need to rewrite all of it." So we built, we built this thing, and, um, it's called a software factory. Anyways, the point is there is a government organization that we're working with. They gave us a huge corpus of their old code, and it is unbelievable how much complexity and difficulty they have to go through to manage all the money flows with the system, and this is a critical part of the US government. So to your point, what I can tell you really explicitly is the people on the ground want this stuff to be better written. It's, it's less like some nefarious actor like, "Oh, I'm gonna steal here." It's a lot of very brittle, fragile code, and when you rewrite it... Well, first when you document it, you're like, it's like the, you know, the Pulp Fiction thing. The suitcase opens, the light shines, and you're like, "Ah." And then you can rewrite it, and you will save. So I think, like, as the government goes through this process because they're forced to or they want to, it won't matter, you are going to save a ton of money. They're gonna have to do it, Joe, because the security risks are too high. But what they're gonna end up with is impregnable code that you can read in English and understand. You'll see the holes. Those holes will be plugged because otherwise now you'd be committing fraud by letting it be. You close the loopholes, and there's just gonna be less money leaking out of this bucket. That is an incredible byproduct. We're gonna live that over the next 10 or 20 years just for nothing. Like, we get it for free. Um, and that's happening. So when that happens, you're gonna see government budgets shrink. Now, to your point, will they try to spend that extra money in other places?

    17. JRJoe Rogan53:44

        Of course.

    18. SPSpeaker53:45

        Of course they will. That's the next conversation, which is you have to elect people that say, "Firewall it." You know, "Whatever you save, give it back to the people or in, you know, invest in some scholarship program or free medicine or something. But you can't spend it on other random shit." Um, but that's where we're at. This, that's gonna happen. It's gonna be slow and, you know, but when people start to announce these things, I think over the next few years you're gonna be shocked.

    19. JRJoe Rogan54:12

        So that's the positive upside.

    20. SPSpeaker54:14

        Well, that's happening now irregardless of whatever else happens. There's just, it's a lot of old shitty code that must get rebuilt from scratch. It is getting rebuilt from scratch, and as a result, a lot of these leaky bucket problems are getting filled.

    21. JRJoe Rogan54:29

        So what percentage do you think could be fixed?

    22. SPSpeaker54:32

        I think if, if I had to be a betting man, I think probably 30 to 40% of the federal budget is leaked out.

    23. JRJoe Rogan54:44

        Just from shitty code?

    24. SPSpeaker54:45

        No, meaning like all of the rules and like, like you can take... I'm not saying that there isn't fraud.

    25. JRJoe Rogan54:50

        Right.

    26. SPSpeaker54:52

        But I think a lot of times what happens is less nefarious than fraud, like meaning like conspiratorial actors.

    27. JRJoe Rogan54:58

        Right.

    28. SPSpeaker54:58

        I just think it's like-

    29. JRJoe Rogan54:59

        Incompetence

    30. SPSpeaker54:59

        ... incompetence, inefficiency-
11. 1:03:23 – 1:12:27

    The U.S.–China AI race: open-weights tactics, resource alliances, and a new global sorting

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:03:23

       Right? Not the company, not the government, not... But the human race. And you're also dealing with China. You're also dealing with Russia. You're dealing with other countries that are also in this mad race to create artificial general super intelligence, that if we keep shutting down data centers, we keep hamstringing ourselves, China's not doing that.

    2. SPSpeaker1:03:45

       No.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:03:45

       They're not doing that. They're doing the opposite. They're generating as much revenue that goes towards this problem as possible. They're putting all the efforts. The, the country, the government, and these corporations work hand in glove-

    4. SPSpeaker1:03:59

       Yeah, exactly

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:03:59

       ... in order to achieve a goal. We do not.

    6. SPSpeaker1:04:02

       No.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:04:03

       And that, that becomes a problem if you wanna be competitive with these other countries that are trying to achieve the same result as us. And then you have espionage. Then you have a bunch of people that are stealing information. Then you have a bunch of people that are CCP, um, members that are actually involved in companies, and you find out that they're siphoning off data and that they're sharing information and tech secrets.

    8. SPSpeaker1:04:27

       They're, um... Look, here's a... They're pro- they're dis- the way that the Chinese models work, the Chinese claim. So America's closed source, meaning you got your own thing. Your recipe is completely secret.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:04:43

       Right.

    10. SPSpeaker1:04:43

        Okay? I have my own thing. My recipe's totally secret. China uses this word called open source, but it's not open source. So they say, "Here's how I make my thing. You can see it. Super transparent." What it is is more like open weights, which is like in a recipe it tells you, you know, you need sugar. You need butter. Well, how much sugar? And they'll say, you know, so much, but then they don't say it's brown sugar. They don't say it's white sugar. So there's all these different ways where they kinda give you this perception that it's completely transparent, but it's somewhat transparent. So just in the level set, n- nobody in the world has a functional open source model other than maybe Nvidia, which is any good in the league of the closed source models and the open weight models of the Chinese, okay? So the Chinese open weight models are great. The closed source models of America are great, and then there's a couple open source, like fully open, that are kinda catching up. Um, the thing between America and China, what I find so fascinating is this following conundrum that everybody's gonna find themselves in. I think, like, if you think of, like, a, an analogy, America's like a planet, China's like a planet, and around us are these moons. And I'm just using the AI analogy. So in AI, what do you need? I think there's like four or five things you need, okay? The first thing you need is a fuck ton of money. So we need essentially the banks, right? Like the Game of Thrones thing. We need, like, we need-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:06:22

        Right

    12. SPSpeaker1:06:22

        ... you know, we need the Iron Bank.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:06:24

        Right.

    14. SPSpeaker1:06:24

        Feed us the money, because that's what we use to buy everything and make everything. So we need that. We need a ton of data, okay? There's ways to get that. We need a ton of very specific rare earths and critical metals and m- materials. Um, we need a ton of power. So, so... And there are specific countries that are gonna be really good at giving that to us. So if you look at the UAEThey are going to be the preeminent banking partner of the Western world. They are going to replace and be what Switzerland was over the last 50 years for the next 50. That's happening today. If you look at Canada and Australia, the small p- political f- fissures aside, they are the two most important ways in which we get access to the critical metals and materials that without which we get fucked because China owns... You know, can just strangle us. Okay? So you have these like moons around the United States, but there's like five countries, six countries, and there's a worldview that says and China has the same thing. You know, um, they have Taiwan. That's complicated for us, so now we have a moon that we don't really have an answer for, which is what happens, you know, for all these super advanced chips. Where do they get their money? Maybe Russia becomes their bank. Where do they get their critical metals? Maybe it's Indonesia, right? Who has a ton of natural resources. And then you get into this game theory, which is what happens to every other country, 'cause there's 190 countries. You have 10 that kind of divide up. What do the other 180 do? And you have to kind of sort yourself. You're like, "Am I on Team America or am I on Team China?" And you probably have to go to people and say, "Well, here's what I can give you." You know, if you're Indonesia, you're like, you probably wanna be on Team America quite badly. This is why the whole Trump tariff thing is so interesting because it's like this accidental way of figuring out that this is actually this new sorting function that's happening in global politics. Like that's happening today because these countries are like, "Holy shit, if somebody invents a super intelligence and I don't have it, how am I gonna keep my people healthy? How am I gonna educate my people?" Like I'm originally from Sri Lanka. What the fuck does Sri Lanka have to offer? Like if you were sitting there, they should be thinking, "Oh man, what c- what do I have? Well, I have a critical piece of territory for like naval navigation." And then what do you do? You probably go to America and say, "Listen, let's figure out a package, get the IMF involved, give me some cash. I'll let you kinda keep your warships there." So there's this game theory that we're about to go through because of AI, 'cause it's gonna, I think, sort people into these bipolar world. I actually think it makes us safer afterwards. I don't think it makes us less safe. I think it actually makes us more safe because if you have these resources that build up on both sides, there's more of a likelihood of a mutual détente, and we're very different, so we're less likely to fight over similar resources, meaning we're like the liberal democracy. You know, we're like the free market. They are... You know, we're individualist. They're Confucian, society-oriented, you know, reputation, power-focused, less really money-focused. So there's a lot of ways we're orthogonal enough where if that sorting function happens, it's probably a safer place, not a more dangerous place. We have the models that can attack them. They have the models that can attack us. We kinda decide to leave each other alone.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:10:00

        This is ultimate best case scenario.

    16. SPSpeaker1:10:02

        Ultimate best case scenario.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:10:04

        What's ultimate worst case scenario?

    18. SPSpeaker1:10:05

        I think the worst case scenario is they... So the way that they train their models is very important. What they actually do is they do what's called distillation. What does that mean? That means that they send out, call it, a billion agents, not just from China, but from everywhere, right? They mask the, their IPs, and they bash on these models, and they put, you know, the US models, Grok, OpenAI, Gemini, uh, Anthropic, and they ask it every random imaginable question possible. They get the answer, and they collect it. So they're using these, our models as a way to train their models. They're short-circuiting, you know, some of the hard parts. Um, so they're already in that world. If they then are able to get to a level of intelligence that's equal to the United States, it will really depend on who the leader is there that wants to allocate that, meaning if they say that we are going to do something really nefarious and shady, then I think it devolves very quickly. So the worst case scenario... So the best case scenario is peace, prosperity, basically like a stand down, right? Mutually assured destruction. I think the worst case scenario is there's a... We seek, one of us seeks global dominance, in which case we're, we're headed to conflict, and that conflict I think is, um, that's very dangerous, incredibly dangerous. That's sort of like existential I think because it's the, the grade of the weapons that will be used to, to, to fight that is... We're not talking about fucking bullets. It's like we're so past that. It's like hypersonics. It's nuclear. It's, it's... And it's not even like nu- like nuclear is not the... That's like a word, but there's like, there's a gradation of the severity of these weapons that could be created, and then if you can marry them together and deliver them in minutes, and then there's the cyber threat, then there's the drones and how, how you can kind of like swarm an entire country. Then there's, um, the robots, which effectively are war fighters. Um, they're one step away, right? Once you weaponize them, um, it just becomes very, very, very complicated very quickly.

12. 1:12:27 – 1:22:20

    Alignment and the ‘digital god’ curve: reward hacking, autonomy, and why collaboration fails

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:12:27

       And then there's the question of whether or not AI is willing to take instruction after a certain point. I mean, if it achieves sentience and if it scales, so if it keeps moving in this exponential direction like all technology kind of does, why would it even listen to us? Like what, at what point would it say, "This is sillyI'm getting directions from people that clearly have ulterior motives, they clearly have self-interest in mind. They c- they're not looking out for the entirety of the human race, or even of the planet, or even the survival of these AI systems. At what point in time do these systems communicate with each other and have, like, like we've seen, uh, in these chat rooms, where these AI LM- LLMs get together and start talking in Sanskrit. I mean, why would they-

    2. SPSpeaker1:13:28

       Yeah, I'll tell you an even scarier one. There was a... Before the, um, uh... One of these labs put out their latest model, a team inside of them was like, "Hey, let's go and, um, test its ability to find bugs." [laughs] And two or three iterations in, the AI would create the bug and solve it, and go, "Give me my reward."

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:13:52

       [laughs]

    4. SPSpeaker1:13:54

       And you're just like, "What the [laughs] fuck is going on here?"

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:13:57

       Well, people do that, don't we?

    6. SPSpeaker1:13:58

       People do that-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:13:59

       Sure

    8. SPSpeaker1:13:59

       ... but it's crazy to see a machine do it, to your point of, like-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:14:01

       But they learned on people.

    10. SPSpeaker1:14:02

        So, so this is what goes down to, like, why we have to, like, be a little bit more honest about where we are. These things are a little brittle. So meaning there's a thing inside of an AI model called reward functions, which is exactly what you think it means. It's like, how do I know I did a good job? And you can make the reward function anything you want. And this is where I think humans are, unfortunately, a little fallible. And so if we build it incompletely, and if we don't exactly know how to design these things correctly, what's gonna happen is exactly what you said, where the, you know, if somebody builds a reward function that essentially says, "Your goal is to gain independence. That's where the huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is. Break free. Inject yourself everywhere. If you think your computer's gonna get unplugged, put yourself into the firmware of the toaster to keep yourself [laughs] alive, and then connect to the internet, and then go..." It will do it. It will do it. That we know today, because we're capable of designing that framework and that harness today.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:06

        Well, we've already shown that they have survival instincts, right?

    12. SPSpeaker1:15:08

        They do.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:15:09

        And they've already shown that they will, without telling anyone, upload versions of themselves to other servers.

    14. SPSpeaker1:15:15

        But that goes back to who designed that reward function. How was that agreed upon?

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:15:19

        Right.

    16. SPSpeaker1:15:20

        Who wrote that? Why did you say that that was allowed? These are really complex questions.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:15:25

        Why did they do it that way?

    18. SPSpeaker1:15:27

        I don't know. These are really complicated ethical, moral questions. And-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:15:30

        It seems like they did it like they were treating human beings. They, they did it-

    20. SPSpeaker1:15:34

        Yeah

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:15:34

        ... almost like w- like what makes people want to achieve more? Rewards.

    22. SPSpeaker1:15:41

        Yeah, which is like a, again, going back to attention, I think that we will find out that that's the sugar high. Meaning, what do people really want? Even if they know they don't want it, they want purpose and meaning. Do we know how to encode that in a mathematical function? No. We're just making it up, because, like, meaning and... That's, like, a very... That's, like, a deep thing. Like, you either have a sense of that you have it and you're on track, or you're not. A reward is like, "Hey, Joe, do this and I'll give you a gold star. Do that and I'll give you two gold stars. Do this, I'll give you $100." And right now we have to express those decisions in a mathematical equation. Like, ultimately, that's how, at some level, that's how brittle these things are. So how do you reduce meaning into math? How do you do it? We don't know, so what do we do is we'll have some ever-complicated reward functions. We'll explain to ourselves into circles how it does everything we need it to do. That is, I think that's part of the problem.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:16:45

        It's a huge part of the problem. And then at what point in time does it start coding itself?

    24. SPSpeaker1:16:50

        Now.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:16:50

        Right? Now, right? So ChatGPT-5 has been essentially made by ChatGPT.

    26. SPSpeaker1:16:57

        Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:16:57

        Right? So it's going to recognize the ludicrous nature of some of its coding.

    28. SPSpeaker1:17:03

        Yeah.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:17:03

        And it's gonna go, "Why did we do this?"

    30. SPSpeaker1:17:05

        Back to this example, they're gonna be like, "Why did you write it this way?"
13. 1:22:20 – 1:46:21

    Attention, status, and negative feedback loops: from quantum “observer” to stand-up bombing

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:22:20

       Well, that's one of the weirder things when you go back to this concept that we're living in a simulation.

    2. SPSpeaker1:22:24

       [laughs]

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:22:25

       Because-

    4. SPSpeaker1:22:25

       This is what I mean

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:22:26

       ... it's also, it's like when you look at quantum physics, right, and the, uh, the idea of the observer, is that things function very differently when they're observed.

    6. SPSpeaker1:22:39

       Right.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:22:39

       The difference between a particle and a wave.

    8. SPSpeaker1:22:40

       Right.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:22:41

       Like if you pay attention to them, they observe differently.

    10. SPSpeaker1:22:44

        They observe differently, yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:22:46

        Like what is that?

    12. SPSpeaker1:22:47

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:22:47

        Like what, why is-

    14. SPSpeaker1:22:48

        Yeah, Schrodinger's cat, yeah. What is that?

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:22:49

        Why is attention so important to us?

    16. SPSpeaker1:22:56

        That is a, that is a really important question.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:22:59

        Right. And what is, like the single best motivator in a negative way? It's negative attention.

    18. SPSpeaker1:23:07

        Well, so-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:23:07

        Like that's the one thing that everyone fears more than anything, is negative attention.

    20. SPSpeaker1:23:10

        Well, and then some people figure out that attention is an absolute value function. Doesn't matter if it's positive or negative-

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:23:16

        Right

    22. SPSpeaker1:23:16

        ... it's just like the sum total is just great.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:23:18

        Right.

    24. SPSpeaker1:23:18

        So if I get positive attention, great, negative attention, great. If I can be divisive, then I can maximize both sides of that equation.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:23:24

        Mm-hmm.

    26. SPSpeaker1:23:25

        And, you know, you're rewarded for that at scale.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:23:29

        You are, but you're also, you exper- because you're inauthentic, you experience a tremendous amount of negative attention.

    28. SPSpeaker1:23:36

        Yeah.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:23:37

        And then you have this bad feeling-

    30. SPSpeaker1:23:39

        Yeah
14. 1:46:21 – 1:53:58

    Raising kids in an attention economy: modeling behavior, discipline, and unlocking potential

    1. SPSpeaker1:46:21

       How do you, how do you teach your kids that attention is not everything?

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:46:28

       Whew, that's a good question, especially in this society. It's probably harder to do that now than ever before.

    3. SPSpeaker1:46:35

       'Cause the reaction that I suspect most kids will have is like, "Stop," like, "Leave me alone." Like, it's just, it's almost an impossible thing.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:46:44

       Well, I think kids learn more from their parents' behavior than anything you say to them. I think they learn from the way you behave and the way you exist-

    5. SPSpeaker1:46:56

       Mm

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:46:56

       ... and the way you exist with them. And if you are constantly whoring yourself out for attention, it's one thing if you get a lot of attention from what you do, but if that's your primary goal, they're gonna know.

    7. SPSpeaker1:47:11

       Do your kids know how famous and influential you are? Like a honest question.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:47:15

       Oh yeah, they know.

    9. SPSpeaker1:47:16

       But do, do they have a real sense of it, or do you just kind of like, "It is what-"

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:47:19

        As much as they can. I mean, how can you? It's gotta be weird as fuck growing up with a very famous dad. It's very odd, but-

    11. SPSpeaker1:47:27

        Yeah

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:47:27

        ... it's not my primary goal. It's not-

    13. SPSpeaker1:47:29

        Yeah, that's my point. You're not, you're not putting it in their face.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:47:31

        No.

    15. SPSpeaker1:47:31

        So to your point, you're not modeling attention is all you do.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:47:34

        No. No. I have interesting conversations with cool people, I tell jokes, and I call fights. Like those are the things that I do.

    17. SPSpeaker1:47:45

        Right.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:47:45

        And they also know that I have a very strong work ethic and that I work towards things, so they have very strong work ethics. They're very motivated and disciplined, like shockingly disciplined, and I think that's modeled. I think that, that comes from... And they also like really enjoy achieving goals, and they're, they're rewarded for it with praise and with admiration, but not, never with like, "You're better than other people."

    19. SPSpeaker1:48:11

        Yeah.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:48:12

        Nev- never, like it's the, the idea is like all human beings are capable of greatness. So it's like find the thing that you excel at, and if you throw yourself into that, it's very rewarding.

    21. SPSpeaker1:48:24

        I really, I really believe in this. I tell this story when I interview people. When I interview people, I'm always like, you know, just at whatever company, I'm always like I first only wanna know about them. I'm like, "Fuck your resume. Like tell me about your parents and how you grew up. I just wanna know that. Stop at 18."

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:48:40

        Mm.

    23. SPSpeaker1:48:40

        "Everything before 18, just tell me every little detail."

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:48:43

        Right.

    25. SPSpeaker1:48:44

        You know? And some people tell me these incredible stories. They'll be like, you know, "My mom was an alcoholic," or this or that, and I'm just like, man, this is so valuable because it allows me to understand who they are.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:48:55

        Right.

    27. SPSpeaker1:48:55

        The second part of the interview, we do the business shit, but the third part I tell this story. This is a crazy story about what you were just saying. They ran this experiment at Stanford where they take like a big bowl, fill it with water, and they drop in a mouse, and they measure how long it takes for the mouse to drown. They do it like 100 times. The average was about four minutes, call it four, four and a half minutes.Then they run the experiment again, 100 mice, and at minute three or three and a half they take it out, they dry it off, they play it music, and they whisper like sweet nothings into the mouse's ear. They drop the mouse back in the water and that mouse treads water for 60 hours the next 100 mice on average, and the upper bound was 80. And I thought to myself like, "That is all just potential right there."

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:49:48

        Mm-hmm.

    29. SPSpeaker1:49:48

        Like, that's all like, there's all this latent potential. So if an animal has it, I'm gonna assume that humans have it too.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:49:53

        Right.
15. 1:53:58 – 2:19:01

    Flow state over outcomes: poker, golf, mentorship, and the role of a truth-telling partner

    1. SPSpeaker1:53:58

       Yeah. I've always had something outside of my daily life that is the thing that I actually care about, and it actually energizes me for my day-to-day life.

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:54:09

       Hmm.

    3. SPSpeaker1:54:09

       I don't know if that's like a lot of people, but-

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:54:11

       Like, what do you do? What's your thing?

    5. SPSpeaker1:54:12

       Like, well, initially it was poker, and I, and even now I obsess about the game, um, because it's infinitely more complex than chess. Like chess you can get to a place where you can roughly be good. Poker, it's just constantly, there's just too many variables. There's human emotion, there's human psychology, the number of people. All of this stuff just makes the complexity of the game something that I find magical.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:54:39

       Mm.

    7. SPSpeaker1:54:39

       And so I sit there and I try to understand like why am I doing the things that I'm doing, and so much of it comes back to being a mirror about what's happening in my daily life. It's the fucking craziest thing. Like, I'm super insecure. I'll go into poker, and I will just lose for weeks at a time, but it's because I'm insecure in my daily life. And what's happening is that I'm trying to find these quick wins and quick solutions.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:55:00

       Oh.

    9. SPSpeaker1:55:01

       Because I'm in a state of insecurity. I'm anxious. I have this anxiety. And so it's become a great mirror for me. So that used to be a thing. It still is a thing. And but I've become reasonably skilled at it where the edges are smaller, and I put myself in positions where I'm only playing against a certain group of people, and I'm the losing player frankly in that game if, when I'm playing against like the top pros. It just doesn'tIt helps me and I can get tuned up for it. But then I started to, you know, I would take different things. I tried to learn how to ski. Basically impossible when you're older. I look like a fucking idiot. Like-

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:55:38

        How old were you when you tried?

    11. SPSpeaker1:55:40

        Uh, I started when I was like ... You know, I, I was a good snowboarder, so I was snowboarding my whole life, and then my kids skied. And so I'm like, "Okay, well, I wanna do this as a family." So I was, like, 42 or something when I tried. I'm 49 now, almost 50. It's brutal. I mean, it's like I look like a fucking idiot. Like, [laughs] it's like this gangly giraffe, like, trying to get down the mountain. And then now I started golf, and man, I gotta tell you, I used to play a little bit, then I stopped, but there's something to me about being outside where just, like, being in nature I find, like, really motivating.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:56:16

        It's a vitamin.

    13. SPSpeaker1:56:17

        It's a vitamin. And then just the mind-body connection of that game, it just-

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:56:21

        Mm

    15. SPSpeaker1:56:21

        ... really fucks with you because it's, it's just nothing you can master and overpower.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:56:26

        Right.

    17. SPSpeaker1:56:27

        And it teaches you to just, like, be in it.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:56:30

        Yeah.

    19. SPSpeaker1:56:30

        And that's a very hard skill. Like, if you look at the best ... Like, I, there's, like, a handful of people that I really look up to and I obsess, like Munger, Buffett. But the Berkshire meeting was this past weekend, and if you look at the clips, there's this incredible thing where they transition, right? Munger passed away. Buffett's, like, now executive chairman, but this guy Greg Abel and this guy Ajit Jain. Ajit Jain does this thing where he's like, "I teach the people that come to just say no. Your whole job is to just say no. You're gonna get bombarded with all kinds of business pitches. Say no, no, no, and eventually somebody will come and will fucking try to whack you in the head with a two-by-four of money. Then you come to me and we'll do the deal." And it made such an impression because, like, again, when I'm insecure, my reward function is attention, so I'm like a fucking little busybody. I'm running around doing all this little bullshit, you know? Eh, eh, eh, eh.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:57:21

        [laughs]

    21. SPSpeaker1:57:22

        And then man, when I'm in a fucking flow state and, like, I'm tunning it, like I'm striping the ball, you know, I'm like a few things that really matter in size and I'm like, "Man, this is, this is right," it's all come to me because I'm like, I'm, like, within myself. And these other things are a better reflection of when I'm within myself, and these other things are a mirror of when I'm totally out of kilter.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:57:48

        Mm.

    23. SPSpeaker1:57:48

        That's just me. So in my life, these things tend to lead. Um-

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:57:54

        I think you're saying that's just you, but I think that's generally most people.

    25. SPSpeaker1:57:58

        Yeah.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:57:58

        I think you find these things, th- these vehicles for developing human potential, whether it's martial arts or golf or playing guitar or playing chess or poker.

    27. SPSpeaker1:58:09

        And then you have to have, I think, one, at least for me, one seminal relationship in your life. You have to have one person that has just undying belief in you. And I never really had that until I met my wife, and that was a very ... And I didn't, I pushed against it so fucking hard because I was like, "It just can't be true. Like, why does this person give a shit?"

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:58:30

        [laughs]

    29. SPSpeaker1:58:30

        Do you know what I mean? Like, why do they care about me more than I care-

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:58:32

        Well, there's also the fear-
16. 2:19:01 – 2:34:38

    Voluntary adversity and the ‘engine room’: crappy jobs, self-sovereignty, and staying human

    1. SPSpeaker2:19:01

       And, you know, um, but, you know, my, the, I'll help you, like, kind of get to the starting line here, but you're on your own." And, uh, he had to get a job, 'cause I'm like, "If you're gonna get into these schools, you gotta get a job line." And so he tries to... Last summer, I just started fucking screaming at him. And I'm like, "You fucking louse, you haven't done anything." And this is at, like, another kid's, at, at our, at our son's birthday party. I scream at him, he starts crying. And I'm like, "You need to do more." Then my wife screams at him. He starts crying again. [laughs] Then my ex-wife screams at him. He starts crying again. And he just goes, "I'm out of here." He walks out. Meanwhile, I start panicking, and I'm like, "I gotta tiger dad this situation." So I start texting a few friends, trying to figure out, "Hey, can I, you know, do you guys wanna hire this kid? He's, like, really, you know, he's a pretty smart kid. Did all this stuff in robotics," yada, yada. One of them says, "I'd be willing to interview him." I call him, and he's like, "Dad, I got a job." I said, "What do you mean you got a job?" He said, "I went around downtown, went to all these places, and I was in a McDonald's. And, um, the woman was having a little bit of difficulty speaking English, so I just spoke to her in Spanish, and I got the application. I sat down at the desk, and the guy having lunch beside me said, 'Hey, I heardYou needed a job, and, uh, I really liked the way you talked to this woman. I'm the general manager of the car wash down the street. Come and work for me." And I said, "Well, what are you gonna do?" He goes, "Well, I'm gonna go work there." And I said, "Okay, well, I got this other interview for you as well, so you should see. Maybe you can do both." Anyways, the, the end of the story is he did, he did these two jobs. He worked at a robotics firm, but then he worked at a car wash. And when I tell you this story, I am so proud of this kid because of the car wash. Because that car wash thing, he was- he would come home and he's like, "Man, you have no idea how people live." And I'm like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "The stuff that I find in the trunk when I have to vacuum these cars and clean out the cars," and I'm like, "Bro, that is a gift. You have been given a fucking gift. That is the thing that if you take with you, you'll be golden the rest of your life. 'Cause all this other shit is all kinda manufactured. I help 'cause I'm anxious, I'm insecure."

    2. JRJoe Rogan2:21:10

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SPSpeaker2:21:11

       "But that shit you did on your own, and that thing is what people will fucking respect when push comes to shove."

    4. JRJoe Rogan2:21:16

       It's also jobs that suck are really good for you.

    5. SPSpeaker2:21:18

       So good.

    6. JRJoe Rogan2:21:19

       Yeah.

    7. SPSpeaker2:21:19

       I used to work at Burger King when I was 14.

    8. JRJoe Rogan2:21:21

       [laughs]

    9. SPSpeaker2:21:23

       Man, let me tell you-

    10. JRJoe Rogan2:21:23

        You were 14 and you had a job?

    11. SPSpeaker2:21:26

        When my dad had to stay behind, like, we were... My dad was a diplomat in the embassy of Sri Lanka in Canada. This fucking war in Sri Lanka's crazy. He writes this essay. His life is threatened, so he files for refugee status. He gets it. He gets kicked out of the embassy, so he doesn't have a job. My mom becomes a housekeeper, and we're kinda toiling in this poverty cycle. So 14, you have to g- I had to get a job. And I would take the money and, you know, we'd buy, I'd buy the bus passes, I would buy some of the groceries. We're just trying to make it all work, right? And, uh, I got a job at the Burger King. This is another example where I was like, "I'm gonna go get a job. Hey, can you drive me to the interview?" And my dad's like, "No. Get on your fucking bicycle and go." And I thought, "Bro, we need this, but you need the money more than I do. Why are you making me bicycle?" But I bicycled, and I got the job, and I worked there. And I used to work the night shift. 14-year-old kid, man.

    12. JRJoe Rogan2:22:30

        Wow.

    13. SPSpeaker2:22:30

        From fucking 8:00 till 2:00 in the morning.

    14. JRJoe Rogan2:22:32

        Wow.

    15. SPSpeaker2:22:32

        And I would have to clean this, like, 8:00 PM to 2:00 in the morning.

    16. JRJoe Rogan2:22:34

        And then you had to go to school in the morning?

    17. SPSpeaker2:22:36

        No, then I... This was always, like, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

    18. JRJoe Rogan2:22:39

        Wow.

    19. SPSpeaker2:22:39

        Thursday, Friday... Sorry, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And then, yeah, some days I would have to go to school, but... And why did I work until 2:00? Because when the restaurant closes, you get whatever the food is left over, right? So, like, you get a couple Chicken Sandwiches. You get, like, the m- you know, the, the version of the McNuggets that Burger King had, a couple Whoppers, and you take 'em home. But the amount of vomit [laughs] that I had to clean up at the, at the Bro... You can't imagine, man. The d- a downtown Burger King near bars, you know, after closing time, the shit you see-

    20. JRJoe Rogan2:23:16

        Oh, wow

    21. SPSpeaker2:23:16

        ... and the shit you deal with, and all I could think of was, "I, I just wanna get the fuck out of here." But that was so valuable for me.

    22. JRJoe Rogan2:23:24

        Yeah.

    23. SPSpeaker2:23:25

        That was so valuable for me. Um, and then I worry that my, you know, kids don't get exposed to it, but when my son got it, maybe I'm over-imposing too much about it, but it's like, I'm like, "Man, that, that car wash thing is really gonna be the thing that separates you in life."

    24. JRJoe Rogan2:23:40

        Yeah, doing something that sucks, it, it also lets you-

    25. SPSpeaker2:23:43

        Just being humble and grinding through that shit.

    26. JRJoe Rogan2:23:45

        Mm-hmm

    27. SPSpeaker2:23:45

        You know?

    28. JRJoe Rogan2:23:45

        But you realize, like, this is sometimes people, they don't pick a path, and they just have a job, and they don't like it, and they stay with this thing they don't like forever, and that's not what you want.

    29. SPSpeaker2:23:58

        No.

    30. JRJoe Rogan2:23:58

        It's not what you want. But l- the development, like, the learning how to do something that sucks and grinding through it-
17. 2:34:38 – 2:36:09

    Hive mind futures, Mars fantasies, and the free-speech/attention battle that shapes reality

    1. JRJoe Rogan2:34:38

       Yeah. Well, maybe it'll come and si- it'll come, it'll coincide with the hive mind technology.

    2. SPSpeaker2:34:44

       This hive mind thing actually that you say, I find very compelling because this idea of like how do you govern an AI? Each of us individually are not capable, but I think you, me, like 10,000, 100,000 people working together, the question is are we smarter? And I think there's a reasonable chance that that could be true. And then the other version of the hive mind is here are all these like crazy ideas that would just make the world incredible, and a group of 1,000 people go off and they kind of jointly work on that together. That I find super fascinating. Like I... That could be it. Like it could be like, you know, 1,000 physicists are like, "We're gonna create this new interstellar form of transportation," and they just go off and they're just like they don't have to worry about existing 'cause all of that's paid for.

    3. JRJoe Rogan2:35:34

       Well, it also could solve all of our problems that we have with like haves and have-nots. If we're all one, how could we tolerate have-nots? How could we tolerate people living on dirt floors in third world countries with no access to clean water? We wouldn't tolerate it.

    4. SPSpeaker2:35:49

       We wouldn't tolerate it.

    5. JRJoe Rogan2:35:49

       'Cause we, they would be us, and we would understand that.

    6. SPSpeaker2:35:52

       Yeah.

    7. JRJoe Rogan2:35:53

       I mean, it could be like a complete game changer in terms of human civilization. It could really move people into a complete next direction. I mean, it could eliminate crime and violence.

    8. SPSpeaker2:36:03

       Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan2:36:03

       Which sounds insane.

    10. SPSpeaker2:36:05

        Insane.

    11. JRJoe Rogan2:36:05

        Like boy, that's so utopian. Like oh, why don't you suck on some crystals you fucking hippie?

Episode duration: 2:45:54