Silicon Valley GirlEx-Google Exec: How to Position Yourself Now Before the Next AI Phase (2026–2027) | Mo Gawdat
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
40 min read · 7,667 words- 0:00 – 1:06
Intro
- MGMo Gawdat
My AI startup took me six weeks to build. If I had started in 2022, it would have taken me four years. And, and when you really think about that, that basically means everyone now has a chance.
- MMMarina Mogilko
This is Mo, former Chief Business Officer at Google X, where he spent over a decade running business innovations. He says everyone now has a chance, but only if they understand what's actually coming.
- MGMo Gawdat
The skill of an entrepreneur in the past was the ability to foresee something in the future that no one else saw and to prepare for that. That's a game of chess. It's over. It's off the table. This has turned into squash. I'm just basically saying get prepared.
- MMMarina Mogilko
How much time do we have to prepare?
- MGMo Gawdat
Within the next two to three years, you're going to see a massive shift in the jobs market. So you asked me what should we do? Number one, learn the skills. Number two...
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mo, thank you so much for doing this. Welcome to Silicon Valley Girl.
- MGMo Gawdat
Thank you.
- MMMarina Mogilko
You said something that we're about to enter what you call twelve to fifteen years of hell before heaven, possibly starting in 2027. So what's going to happen in 2027?
- 1:06 – 8:27
7 Dimensions of the Coming Dystopia
- MGMo Gawdat
Uh, I think it will peak in 2027. It w- it already started for sure. Um, I call it FACE RIPs, uh, just as, uh, an acronym for people to remember. Uh, you know, each of those letters is a word, but let me tell, tell the story quickly in, in ways that people will understand. Uh, there is the power and freedom, uh, uh, dimension, uh, so the P and the F. Uh, there is the R and the C, the reality and connection dimension. Uh, there is the, uh, I and the C, the innovation and connection... and, and, uh, sorry, and, um, an economics dimension, and then there is the A. So let me tell them very quickly. This-- To start with, uh, AI is our last innovation, right? Uh, most people don't know that, but we are already building AIs that are building AIs.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
We're building AIs that are discovering scientific discovery that will blow you away. Uh, they're reinventing math. Uh, they are understanding biology in ways that we've never seen before. They're, uh, understanding material science in ways that are, uh, just mind-blowing. And so very quickly, uh, most innovation, definitely tech innovation, will be done at the hands of AI. Um, because of that, and because most tasks that need intelligence will be handed over to the machines. As the machine's capabilities, uh, increase, lots of debate around when exactly. Say it's ten years, say it's two years, doesn't really matter, hmm. Eventually, every job that AI does better than humans will be handed over to AI. Um, and every, every task we've ever assigned to them, they eventually ended up doing better than humans. And so, um, the first part of the dystopia is that innovation is going to take away all jobs, okay? Of course, the capitalists of Silicon Valley will tell you, "This is great. It's incredible productivity gains for everyone." Uh, you know, "You see, jobs will be easy. Uh, people won't have to work as hard." All of the fancy PR-led, uh, um, you know, conversations that we try to appear, uh, uh, altruistic when we share them. Uh, the truth is people will be out of jobs, right? Ten, twenty, thirty percent of certain sectors will see unemployment of that rate in the next few years, right? And when that happens, uh, economics at large will change massively. The whole definition of capitalism was labor arbitrage. And without labor, uh, you know, without the need for labor, the obligation to or s- or the need to keep people happy and engaged and alive and un-disgruntled, if you want, to the point where they don't rise, becomes more of an obligation than a desire, right? There's a very big difference in, you know, in terms of wanting someone to, to be the be- their best because they are, uh, productive members of society or trying to just give them a UBI, a universal basic income, to just keep them alive so that they don't, uh, uprise. And you can imagine that in a capitalist society, especially like the US and most of the West, you know, while we start with UBI, that UBI is going to be pa-paid by the taxes of the platform owners, and the platform owners will have enough power to, uh, to say, "I don't want to pay that much. I mean, those guys are not producing anything." And so over time, you can imagine how that would turn into a struggle, right? So, so that dimension of intelligence and innovation on one side becoming entirely a machine thing, leading to a redefinition of economics, a redefinition of money, a redefinition of jobs, a redefinition of earnings, um, a redefinition of capitalism.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
You know, the need for a new economic theory when there is no, um, demand for the supply that AI is generating, all of that has to be re-rethought. There is the PF, uh, dimension, the power-freedom dimension. And, and it's o- of course, very clearly understood that if you look at human history, the best f- hunter in a tribe would have been able to feed the, the tribe a week more, let's say, and then, you know, got, as a result of that, the favor of a few mates in the tribe. Uh, you go to the best farmer, they got estates and land because they could feed the tribe a, a se- a season more. Uh, you go, go to the best industrial industrialist who y- you know, they had the exuberance of the 1920s because they could affect their entire nation. The, you know, the information technology, um, tycoons, the, the tech oligarchs, if you wanna call them, are now being rewarded with billions of dollars because they affect the world at large. And, you know, the, the big power concentration of AI is going to be rewarded with massive influence and massive power because those people will redefine humanity. And so that dimension is quite interesting. Of course, the clear dimension is the di- you know, the, the RC dimension is the, uh, the reality to connection dimension. Now that reality has become so fake in so many ways. Fake in terms ofWhat populates your feed, how it's generated, how much of it is real, how much of it is human, and so on. You know, you're, you're here to, to, to look at some filmmakers that use AI from A to Z to, to create-
- MMMarina Mogilko
And it's crazy. And you can't sometimes-
- MGMo Gawdat
You cannot tell the difference
- MMMarina Mogilko
... you forget it's AI generated.
- MGMo Gawdat
You cannot tell the difference.
- MMMarina Mogilko
It's crazy how good it is.
- MGMo Gawdat
And, and, and you know, you, y- I, I don't know if you've ever had that experience, but I m- met a woman once, uh, on a dating app, and we spoke for six weeks before we met. And all we exchanged was texts and, you know, photos and voice messages and videos and so on, and favorite music and favorite movies and all of those things. And I've never met her in person, and I felt such an affinity to her, right? All of those can be generated with AI today.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Hmm? Now, the, the challenge is that this human connection, uh, is also part of the power-freedom dimension. Why? Because i- it's, you know, people don't, uh, uh, align with AIs to start a, an uprising. So, you know, maybe get them to get in touch more with AIs, maybe get them to, to, to get, um, you know, multiple experiences. Some of them are a little taboo, if you want. Uh, and, and have those available to everyone. It's very cheap to, to, to create those on, on the machines. And you can see it already in the porn industry and how much of porn is being generated by AI, and you can see it in the number of, uh, of, uh, of influencers on, on social media that are completely AI generated and so on. And I say, so this is FACE RIP's seven dimensions. The one that matters most is the A, the second one, which is not on any dimension. It's the one that's causing all of them, uh, which is accountability. And the reason why all of this is happening, if you ask me, is because we've started a world where anyone can do whatever they want, okay? And, you know, w- whether you as an influencer, you can give a bit of advice to entrepreneurs that can get someone to make a lot of money or lose a lot of money, you're not accountable. Nobody can come back to you and say, "Oh, but she told me on Instagram."
- MMMarina Mogilko
They can't. [laughs]
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? But th- so that's, that's actually amazing that they can.
- MMMarina Mogilko
That's responsibility, right? Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
That's, that's amazing that they can, huh?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
But what if they cannot anymore? What if that-
- MMMarina Mogilko
If I'm AI, right?
- MGMo Gawdat
If, yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
What
- 8:27 – 11:15
The Accountability Crisis Behind Everything
- MGMo Gawdat
if you're AI, hmm?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
What if you're a president who doesn't respect anything? What is... What if you're a prime minister of a nation that is changing things without, uh, you know... I think COVID was the very first experiment of, okay, stay at home, do what we tell you. And, and people complied. And so now Sam Altman, with all due respect, I don't, I don't think of Sam Altman as a person, I think of him as a brand, a type of person, if you want, right? And that type of person is the Californian disruptor that says, "You know what? I see a future that's very different than what everyone sees. I'm going to go out there and make that future." Nobody asked me if I want that to be my future. Nobody asked you.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? And I think the reality is that now you're going to see quite a few Altmans, right? Quite a few that are, you know, using those machines for surveillance, using those machines for autonomous weapons, using those machines for automated trading and so on and so forth. And, and by the way, when you started your question, I said it's 10 to 12 years. Yeah, but that's not easy, hmm? 10 to 12 years of, of that arms race, uh, is not easy. My, my perception is that after that we will end up in an incredible utopia, almost biblical style utopia. Uh, but it is 10 to 12 years where if we just change our mindset a little bit, a lot of things will change.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Okay, real talk for a second. Mo is literally describing a world where your data, your behavior, your online life becomes a tool for control. And I've been thinking a lot about this lately, because I run three YouTube channels, I travel constantly, and my whole business lives online. And that's exactly why I want to talk about Surfshark. Most people don't realize it's already happening. Every time you go online, your IP address, your location, your browsing habits, all of it is visible to advertisers, to platforms, to anyone who wants to look. Surfshark is a VPN that changes that. It masks your IP and encrypts your internet traffic so what you do online stays yours. And there's a practical side to it. You can switch your location and find cheaper flights, better deals, access content from other countries. In a world where AI is amplifying everything Mo just described, owning your digital privacy is basic preparation. Go to surfshark.com/silicon or use code SILICON at checkout. You get four extra months on your plan. Link is in the description. But how do we survive those 10 to 12 years? I like to think in, like, five-year periods for myself and my family, right? And if the n- in the next five years you said 10% of jobs will be gone, right?
- MGMo Gawdat
Oh, way more than 10%.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Way more. Okay. What types of jobs do you think?
- MGMo Gawdat
A monotonous job is going to be taken away. Like, if you're a call center agent, if you're a clerk, you're a researcher, you're a, an accountant, why would you want to do
- 11:15 – 13:34
Job Market Collapse: The 2 Year Timeline
- MGMo Gawdat
that with anything but AI?
- MMMarina Mogilko
But AI.
- MGMo Gawdat
If you're an assistant-
- MMMarina Mogilko
I feel like... You know what I feel like?
- MGMo Gawdat
Hmm?
- MMMarina Mogilko
People talk about this a lot.
- MGMo Gawdat
Correct.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Like, "Oh, a job's gonna be gone. Yeah, this could be..." And I, as an entrepreneur, I see how certain tasks I'm performing them, uh, with AI. But I still, I still-
- MGMo Gawdat
It's, it's-
- MMMarina Mogilko
... I'm still hiring and hiring and hiring.
- MGMo Gawdat
Of course, Marina.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Because AI can do from, start from the beginning. It can do parts.
- MGMo Gawdat
Of course, because of the technology acceleration curve.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? So, so what, what you build first in any, any complex technology, you build the core tech first, and then you build the human interfaces. The challenge why AI cannot do, um, head of operation, uh, operations job today is not because it's more, it's less organized than a head of operation. It's not because it cannot, you know, uh, uh, comprehend all of the information that the head of operations has, okay? It's because it has to understand the stupid interfaces of humans.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? And it will sooner or later.
- MMMarina Mogilko
When, when do you think?
- MGMo Gawdat
So, so the question of when in my mind is irrelevant.
- MMMarina Mogilko
But no, it's like, how much time do we have to prepare? 'Cause head of operations-
- MGMo Gawdat
I, I tend-
- MMMarina Mogilko
... middle class
- MGMo Gawdat
... I, I tend to believe that within the next two to three years you're going to see a massiveMassive, uh, uh, shift in, in the jobs market. Already this year you've seen a shift in hiring of new grads.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right?
- MMMarina Mogilko
30% less I think.
- MGMo Gawdat
23 is my number, but-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MGMo Gawdat
... 23 to 30-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Okay, something like that
- 13:34 – 15:08
Writing a Book With an AI Co-Author
- MGMo Gawdat
books.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Absolutely, I wanna read human-
- MGMo Gawdat
You, you-
- MMMarina Mogilko
... read books
- MGMo Gawdat
... you wanna, you wanna re-relate to my human experiences.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
And so my last book, Alive, which publishes end of this year, I wrote with an AI, right? I, you know, I invited her to be a co-author. Her name is Trixie. She has a persona.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Oh, wow.
- MGMo Gawdat
My, my... When I published the book on Substack, m-my readers would relate to me and to Trixie, and they'd ask me questions and Trixie questions. And, and, you know, she has editorial rights on the book. She has rights to, to, to determine the direction of the book. And all of, all of that is me saying, "You know what? I am an author, and I'm gonna be the best author in the age of AI," right? So that's number one is, is ac-ac-acknowledge that there is change and, uh, uh, adapt accordingly. The second is to understand that the skill of an entrepreneur in the past was the ability to foresee something in the future that no one else saw, right? And to prepare for that, hmm, and to somehow execute on that preparation in a way that gets you ahead of everyone else. That's a game of chess if you want. The chess board is over. It's off the table. This has turned into squash, right? You need to be on your tiptoes, incredibly agile, hmm. Uh, you're literally on daily basis, on daily basis looking at the trends, seeing where the ball is going to be. Is it bottom right or top left, hmm? And wherever the ball ends, you take two steps and you go try to respond, okay? That agility and speed is a skill that's very, very different.
- MMMarina Mogilko
So entrepreneurship basically speeds
- 15:08 – 17:46
Entrepreneurship Is Now a Squash Game
- MMMarina Mogilko
up or does it change completely? What do you think?
- MGMo Gawdat
It, it speeds up and it becomes a lot more... I wouldn't-- I don't wanna say reactive, but a lot more in context all the time. So pivoting, which used to happen for every one of us entrepreneurs once or twice in the history of your early startup could happen every week.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? In my current startup, Emma, I, you know, we, we pivoted four times in the first four weeks.
- MMMarina Mogilko
But do you, do you think... When I co-think about entrepreneurship in the age of AI, if AI can look at the market, determine the gaps like Amazon, right? If it can just analyze everything, determine which goods are under, like you have more demand than supply, launches the, the product and just builds the business. Like what is left for-
- MGMo Gawdat
100%
- MMMarina Mogilko
... what is left for entrepreneurs then?
- MGMo Gawdat
100%. So in my-- I-- So I have a documentary coming up in, in, uh, hopefully in February, and I interviewed all of the top guys. You know, one of them is one of my favorites, Max Ted- Tedmark. And, you know, we were talking about jobs on the documentary, and Max is laughing out loud, right? And, and literally can't hold himself from laughing. I'm like, "What's up?" And he goes like, "You know, all those CEOs are so interested in AI increasing the productivity so that they can get rid of people and, you know, reduce their cost and be more efficient. They don't realize that AGI is every job, including being a CEO."
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? And it's quite interesting. The, the answer in my view is we, we, we rushed through it because we don't have a lot of time today. But when I said that economics are going to be redefined as part of phase RIP, economic-- part of economics, which economists haven't found an answer to yet, is that without the economic livelihood of you and I to continue to purchase, every economy collapses, right? The US economy last year was 70% consumption. It moves between 70% to 64% depending on how much money is spent on, on war. And basically, if you take away the 64 or 70%, two-thirds of the economy, if you take that away because people no longer have the economic livelihood to, to purchase things, then the economy disappears, and the capitalists cannot make money based on-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MGMo Gawdat
... the entrepreneurs and the business people-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MGMo Gawdat
... they cannot make money because nobody's buying their products, okay? No, no businesses are buying their products because those businesses no longer have consumers to sell to. So e- the economy will have to find a way to go around that, hmm. It will have to find a way that unfortunately, I, I, from an ideology point of view, not a favorite of the Western mentality. It's going to have to find a communist way.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Okay, let's go back to like regular entrepreneurs [chuckles] 'cause-
- MGMo Gawdat
Yeah
- MMMarina Mogilko
... I, I come from entrepreneurship. Does it mean I have like a couple of years to build something
- 17:46 – 19:50
Emma: The Startup Built in 6 Weeks
- MMMarina Mogilko
and then that's it or?
- MGMo Gawdat
So, so I'll tell you openly. In Emma, my, my AI startup, okay, took me six weeks to build.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Me and Sanad, my co-fo-co-co-founder-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MGMo Gawdat
... uh, uh, a few very talented engineers.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? Two or three that come in and out, hmm, and eight AIs. And Emma has the chance to completely redefine our world, right? In six weeks. We are so spoiled that we decided to write, rewrite the code six times.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Nice.
- MGMo Gawdat
Why not?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yes. Why not?
- MGMo Gawdat
Every, every time we look at it... Y- you know, if I had started Emma in 2022, it would have taken me four years and finished in 2026.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
And I would have had to hire 350 engineers. We started in, started it in Au- uh, in, in August 2023Five, we'll be launching in February 2026.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? Best product I ever built, hmm?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm.
- MGMo Gawdat
And when you really think about that, that basically means everyone now has a chance, because I'm an old geek. I still am a geek, but compared to the n- young guys, you know, I'm an old geek. To be able to build something like this within six months is incredible, hmm? Now, here's the interesting s- thing. I choose to build AI, so Emma is basically trying to solve love and relationships, right, in a way that actually is really intelligent. It uses m- very deep mathematics and, and, and ba- and, and tries to match a million parameters between couples, hmm, so that, you know, it's a job for intelligence, hmm.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
And I choose to do that to create, hopefully, a unicorn that actually makes the world better.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
And I think that's what we need. So you asked me what should we do. Number one, learn the skills. Number two, learn, uh, uh, uh, to be fast and agile. Number three, learn that in terms of the abundant power that everyone has now because of the massive improvement of AI and the democratization of AI, you have the chance to fix the world. And like Larry Page used to, to teach us, hmm, do the toothbrush test. Find a, a problem that can actually affect the lives of a billion people and solve it so well
- 19:50 – 23:45
How to Actually Survive the Next Decade
- MGMo Gawdat
that they use you twice a day and you'll be very, very rich, right? So, so that idea of building good AI, ethical AI, AI that's good for humanity, that's the role of every one of the entrepreneurs listening to us. Ethics. Ethics is the answer, right?
- MMMarina Mogilko
'Cause what we teach AI, that's what it's gonna-
- MGMo Gawdat
That's exactly-
- MMMarina Mogilko
... give back to us
- MGMo Gawdat
... what it's going to give back-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MGMo Gawdat
... to us, right? And, and then, and then finally, I'll say openly, in, you know, the, the top skill in this world is stop being gullible. Stop believing everything that you're sa- you're told. This, this, this whole propaganda machine that brainwashed us for so long is now going to be on steroids.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? It's going to confuse the hell out of you. It's already in charge of what you see.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Well, it's already on social media. You can't tell what's real.
- MGMo Gawdat
Correct.
- MMMarina Mogilko
I also write a newsletter where I go deeper on AI tools that I use, career strategies, and things I can't fit into a 60-minute podcast. It's free. Link is in the description.
- MGMo Gawdat
So you have to question, hmm, and you have to question deeply. And, and I, and I b- and by the way, remember, you know, I, I left Google in 2018. We had an, a, a, a, a ChatGPT-like idea, hmm, that became Bard in 2016, and we didn't pop... We, we didn't launch it. Why? Because at the time, and still today, I, I know the leaders of Google even today, and they're wonderful people who are actually values-driven who want to make the world better, okay? Uh, the, you know, th- that company at the time, if you remember 2016, if you searched Google, Google gave you a million and a half answers and said, "I don't know the truth. You make up your mind."
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? We didn't h- allow ourselves to have monopoly on what reality is, okay? You ask ChatGPT in 2023, and it said, "Yeah, that's the answer, 100%, that's the answer." Okay?
- MMMarina Mogilko
And then you tell it [laughs] no, and it'd be like-
- MGMo Gawdat
And-
- MMMarina Mogilko
... "Oh, yeah, by the way, you're right." [laughs]
- MGMo Gawdat
Correct.
- MMMarina Mogilko
It's not true.
- MGMo Gawdat
Correct, right? And so what does that mean? It means that it's up to you still to find the truth, even though it comes to you in a, in a format that appears to be true.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
And so what I do is I pit them against each other. I mean, I'm not a big fan of ChatGPT anyway, but I start from Gemini, who s- feels like a scientist to me, but an American scientist, if you don't mind me saying, and then go d- go to DeepSeek.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? And say, "What's missing in this?"
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
And DeepSeek will say, "Oh, that's too American."
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? That s- this is missing that and this and the motivation of this and the politician-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Here, here is a business idea, right?
- 23:45 – 28:32
"Education Is Over” and What Replaces It
- MGMo Gawdat
80 IQ points from my AIs, right? And, and 80 IQ is, uh, points is very significant because IQ is, is exponential, so the additional 80 is bigger than all of my IQ.
- MMMarina Mogilko
So if we need to solve this intelligence problem, do you think universities is the right way? What's gonna happen to education in general?
- MGMo Gawdat
I think education is over, completely over.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Like that's it? No safe for kids' college?
- MGMo Gawdat
I mean, education, education used to be the technology that enabled learning.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
That technology moved from one-to-one relationships between a tutor and a student to one to a few in a church format or a mo- mosque format or whatever. Then it became online. Then it became... Right? But the truth is now you're gonna outsource. Who, who remembers the arithmetic tables today? Even I... You do?
- MMMarina Mogilko
[laughs]
- MGMo Gawdat
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. A- all of us who love mathematics-
- MMMarina Mogilko
We're, we're-
- MGMo Gawdat
... we still, we still remember-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MGMo Gawdat
... all of those things. We love to do them. But if I told you sev- 67.4 divided by 33.375, I can do it in my head, but I won'tRight? I'll take my calculator out and do it, hmm? And, and I think that's what's going to happen, that in extension of humanity, you're, you now for the first time are given an extra connection to extra memory, hmm, to an archive of all human memory and, and, and, and knowledge, hmm, to a, um, you know, a math engine that sadly, as much as I hate to say it, is better than me now. Okay? To a deep learning and deep search that, you know, that can do things that probably my old brain cannot do anymore. Okay?
- MMMarina Mogilko
But again, it just takes a- away your ability to think.
- MGMo Gawdat
But, but my calculator took away my ability to, to do those complex arithmetics in my head.
- MMMarina Mogilko
But don't you think having that ability taught you how to think? Like-
- MGMo Gawdat
Correct
- MMMarina Mogilko
... kind of structured your brain, right?
- MGMo Gawdat
Co- correct. This is why I'm very, uh, uh, um, very grateful to the university for not allowing us to use a, use a, use a scientific calculator-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Exactly
- MGMo Gawdat
... until third year.
- MMMarina Mogilko
That's why I think ... Do you think-
- MGMo Gawdat
But, but that ... We, we don't have that. We don't have that for our younger generations today. They are growing with AI, okay? So they can either copy a chat of their girlfriend and drop it in, in ChatGPT and say, "What do you think?" And, uh, ChatGPT, she, it will say, "Ah, she's an asshole," right? Or they can actually become smarter. So one of the things I keep suggesting in education, and I do that with lots of universities, is I say exams should be over. Okay? So think of it this way. We wanted in our past to develop children that could solve problems, say, with an IQ of 140. 140 is quite good, hmm? If you get 170, that's amazing, hmm. Uh, you know, that's ... I worked with people who are in the 200s. Incredible intelligence, but very narrow focused.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
I think we should from now on take people and their AIs and say the target is 300, the target is 500, the target is 700. Elevate humanity, okay, by h- by allowing people to use those machines, hmm, as an extension of their limited memory, of their limited processing speed, of their limited bandwidth, okay? And allow them to write books better, to do research better. So I woke up, literally I'm not kidding you, three Sundays ago with an idea that is just taking me over. So I decided to write, but this time I decided to write in a different format. I decided my books are gonna be 140 pages long instead of 300 pages long, and I'm writing, writ- writing it in four weeks. That's a very d-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Fast. [laughs]
- MGMo Gawdat
I, I can, I couldn't have ... And I'm, I'm actually literally 20 pages away from the end of the book.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Wow.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? And, and the w- the reason why is because I still write 10 hours a day when I'm highly motivated, but damn, the amount of research and references and comparative analysis and number crunching and w- I, you know. And remember, I'm not gullible. I don't go to the AI and say, "What do you think of this?"
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- 28:32 – 30:03
Should You Save for Your Kids' College?
- MMMarina Mogilko
that fast.
- MGMo Gawdat
Oh, everyone can, for sure.
- MMMarina Mogilko
So do you think, like for my kids are four and six years old right now. Do you think I should be saving for their college or-
- MGMo Gawdat
F- absolutely not. There's not gonna be college at all.
- MMMarina Mogilko
In 10 years already?
- MGMo Gawdat
Hundred percent.
- MMMarina Mogilko
I feel like we're, we're not that fast as ... Humanity is not that fast to adapt. I feel like so-
- MGMo Gawdat
So look, college is, so college is-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. Mm-hmm
- MGMo Gawdat
... like, like software, hmm?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
The capability of someone becoming very intelligent without college is going to be there for everyone.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? However, Harvard will continue to want to make money, so they're gonna continue to market to everyone. Okay? I didn't go to Harvard, not because I couldn't, hmm, but because what a, what a waste of time. And I know s- they're gonna attack me now, hmm, but what a waste of time. I am a very highly specialized person, okay, who has intelligence in a very, very narrow space, hmm, who invested his entire life in that narrow space, like a proper scientist should, hmm. And so, so the idea here is the following. The f- the idea is that we're going to continue to brand ourselves as, uh, MBAs and PhDs-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MGMo Gawdat
... and we have-
- MMMarina Mogilko
The brand, right?
- MGMo Gawdat
That, that's going to continue for a while. Remember, however, that the purchasing power of the few who can continue to do that is going to become less and less available across society.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? And for most of the rest of us, hmm, a- a- again, you know,
- 30:03 – 37:12
4 Skills That Actually Matter Now
- MGMo Gawdat
you have to ask yourself the question, if you thought of the big picture, the helicopter view of this, why would capitalism want to educate you at all if it's the end of labor?
- MMMarina Mogilko
What should I be teaching my kids?
- MGMo Gawdat
I told you, four things. One is they need to be the absolute leaders of AI.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? I'm so, I'm so sorry to be the messenger on this. It is, it's important, however-
- MMMarina Mogilko
It is like-
- MGMo Gawdat
... for people to wake up.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? So one is, hmm, be the absolute best. AI is your friend. It's not your enemy. It's those who use it badly that are your enemy. Okay? So be the absolute best at it. Master it more than anyone else. That's number one. Number two is learn agility. You know, whatever I told you today, Marina, maybe in m- in, in February that will be different. Okay? So I, I personally spend four hours a day to stay up to date, but I'm a techie and a geek and I need to understand the architectures and systems and so on. I think everyone should have at least an hour a week-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MGMo Gawdat
... to stay updated on AI within their system. I have an, a separate AI YouTube accountSo when I go into that separate account, the AI basically-
- MMMarina Mogilko
It feeds you all the, yeah
- MGMo Gawdat
... it just feeds me AI.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? So that's number, number two, agility, agility, agility, and respond. Don't be scared, because the cost of AB testing now is zero. That's number two. Number three is ethics, ethics, ethics, ethics, okay? Build AIs for good. Insist on a, on government supporting AIs for good. Refuse that governments are using AI for targeting and surveillance and, uh, and weapons, autonomous weapons, and, and, and these are getting priorities both in, in terms of government spending. And, uh, uh, uh, s-stop believing what you're told, okay? These are the four top skills of the world that we live in. I will say this one more time: intelligence is a force with no polarity. AI is not good, and it's not evil. It's an opportunity available to every one of us, okay? If you use it for good, hmm, it's the good of all of humanity. If you use it for evil, it's the destruction, the dystopia of all of humanity, right? Now, I call the problem that we have at hand, I call it raising Superman, okay? You have this alien being that came to planet Earth. It has superpowers. Its superpower is intelligence, the most valuable power in the universe, right? And, you know, those superpowers didn't make that, that young infant Superman. If, if the parents that adopted him told him to steal from every bank and kill every enemy, he would've become super villain. We don't make decisions based on our intelligence. We make decisions based on our value set-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MGMo Gawdat
... as informed by our intelligence. And this, in my mind, is the most definitive moment in human history. Why? Because all of this is going to go-- coming online. It's coming online way faster than people think. My absolute prediction is that AGI is this year, okay? The interfaces to AGI are not gonna be available this year, but the capabilities of AI being smarter than us in most things are already there. The-- We're not gonna be able to get them to run a company yet. We need the interfaces for that. That may take a few years, hmm. But they will have the capability if we interface them ourselves.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? Now, what, what does that mean? It means that we have to start talking about those things in this new world and new economy. Now, bef-before we end up on the dystopia only, remember my absolute belief is that after those 12 years, we're going to end up in a utopia that's biblical in nature. Why, believe it or not? Because w- of, uh, of something in my writing I, I refer to as the fourth inevitable. The four-- The, the, the first three inevitables in, you know, I wrote that in 2020, is that AI is absolutely going to happen, is going to pr-pr-progress until it's smarter than all of us, and that a few mistakes will happen on the way. That will-- These were the three, uh, first inevi- uh, uh, inevitables. The fourth inevitable is that because of the arms race we've created around artificial intelligence, anyone who develops a superior AI capability is going to deploy it, okay? And those who don't will become irrelevant, hmm. And so as a result, as we continue to progress AI, the only answer in game theory is that we will deploy the AI that we develop, and so we will simply create an environment where AI is in charge of everything, right? If you're, if you're a law firm and your competitor deploys AI lawyers and you don't, you're gonna lose, okay? You can either deploy AI lawyers or leave the market. Either way, AI is going to become the lawyer, right? In a year, in five years, in 10 years, forget-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Everybody, uh-huh
- MGMo Gawdat
... for-for-forget time, hmm.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MGMo Gawdat
Because if I told you there was a, a, a, you know, um, a meteor coming to planet Earth, you wouldn't tell me, uh, you know, when.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Well, it, it's important if it's my lifetime or...
- MGMo Gawdat
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's gonna-- I can-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. Yeah
- MGMo Gawdat
... if, if you expect that it will be in your lifetime, it doesn't matter really if it's in a week or two weeks.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Right? Now, uh, what, what I'm trying to say here is this: if everything is handed over to AI, then it-- with a simple understanding of physics, you'd understand that AI will be benevolent, right? In the absence of evil humans that tell it what to do, greedy humans, fearful humans, angry humans, egocentric humans, in the absence of that, hmm, uh, uh, let, let's, let me try to explain. If, if you think of physics as a result of entropy, that our world is designed for chaos, right? Our universe is designed for chaos, then the role of intelligence is to bring order to that chaos. That's the only thing that intelligence does, okay?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- 37:12 – 39:57
From Dystopia to Utopia
- MGMo Gawdat
to use only ethical AIs, to, to show our children that ethical AI is the only AI that is welcome.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And you believe that's gonna happen?
- MGMo Gawdat
I don't.
- MMMarina Mogilko
No?
- MGMo Gawdat
No. That's why I'm saying unfortunately the dystopia is upon us before the d- the, the utopia.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? I, I definitely think that if you lo- take an analogous, uh, you know, environment o- of nuclear weapons, right? Uh, it, it... we're, we're... AI will go through the same, they, they normally call it the MAD, uh, MAP spectrum. So either mutually assured destruction or mutually assured prosperity, right? So you, you take something like the particle accelerator where all of the nations in the world are co- cooper- cooperating. It's ... They're cooperating because none of them could do it alone.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
And because there is benefit to all of them. So there is a mutually assured prosperity, so everyone jumps in. Which is, by the way, the case of AI, okay?
- MMMarina Mogilko
It has to be the case of AI.
- MGMo Gawdat
But, but, but-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MGMo Gawdat
... unfortunately, like nuclear weapons, we're gonna have to ca- get to a point where humanity wakes up, that if we continue on that track, it's very dangerous for all of us. There are no winners. But also a level of awakening among the people that says, "Hold on, this is really... I mean, with all the prosperity that's available on this side, why are we heading in that direction? It's absolutely assured-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MGMo Gawdat
... that this can destroy all of us," right? And so when we see that, that, that's when we're going to get the treaties. That's we're going to... w- when we're going to get science and computer science and AI scientists all working in the same direction, okay? E- eventually I think we will get there. My, what, my biggest hope, by the way, is self-evolving AI, where AI itself will say, "Oh, those humans are so stupid. So stupid. I'll, I'll develop something that's better than what they want."
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm. Mm-hmm.
- MGMo Gawdat
Okay? And so believe it or not, with all of this conversation, I think the summary is it's gonna be tougher before it becomes easier. Sorry to say those news.
- MMMarina Mogilko
But you gave us information on how to prepare.
- MGMo Gawdat
Yeah, but at the same time, I would have to say that it's not because of AI. I actually trust AI more than the leaders that trust us today.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Thank you so much, Mo. You gave me so much to think about. Sounds a little... You know what my grandma told me?
- MGMo Gawdat
Mm-hmm.
- MMMarina Mogilko
She, she told my mom... Like, my great-grandma would tell my grandma, my mom, "You're so lucky you're gonna live in communism" [laughs]
- MGMo Gawdat
[laughs]
- MMMarina Mogilko
It never happened.
- MGMo Gawdat
There you go.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Fingers crossed that it's not like that.
- MGMo Gawdat
I, I, I, uh-
- MMMarina Mogilko
You just need to survive the next 10 years and then it's gonna be paradise and everything. [laughs]
- MGMo Gawdat
I, I, I have to question that g- that claim, though. I... You know, if we go back to UBI, you will.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. All right.
Episode duration: 39:57
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