Interviewer: Reid Hoffman
Guest: Sam Altman
Not yet trillion dollar “take on Googles” startups yet – but will be a serious challenge to Google for first time
eg, Human level chatbot interface that actually works – new medical services, new education services
Idea of language interface where you say in natural language, dialogue, and computer just does it for you
Very powerful models will be one of genuine new tech platforms since mobile
How to create an enduring differentiated business
-small handful of large base models will win – skeptical of startups doing small models
–middle layer will become really important – take large models, tune it, create model for medicine, or model for AI friend – will have data flywheel
Lots of AI experts think these models won’t generate net new knowledge for humanity – thinks they’ll be wrong and surprised
AI in science:
1. Science dedicated products eg Alpha Fold – will see a lot more, bio cos will do amazing things
2. Tools that make us more productive – improve net output of scientists and engineers – eg, CoPilot
3. AI that can be an AI scientist to self improve – automate our own jobs, go off and test new science and research – teaching AI to do that
What is Alignment Problem?
A powerful system that has goals in conflict with ours
How do we build AGI that does things in best interests of humanity
How to avoid accidental or intentional mis-use
AI could eventually help us do alignment research itself
Reid: will be able to tell agent “don’t be racist” and let it figure out
AI moonshots?
-language models will go much further than people think – so much algorithmic progress to come, even if we run out of compute or data
–true multi modal models – every modality, fluidly move between them
-continuous learning models
These above 3 things will be huge victory
OpenAI – focus on next thing where we have high confidence, let 10% of company go and explore
Can’t plan for greatness, but sometimes breakthroughs will happen
AI will seep in everywhere
Marginal cost of intelligence and energy will rapidly trend towards zero – will touch almost everything
Metaverse will become like iPhone – a new container for software
AI will be new technological revolution – more about how metaverse will fit into AI then vice-versa
Low cost + fast cycle times is how you compete as a startup
In bio – simulators are bad, AI could help
What are best utopian sci-fi universes so far
-Star Trek is pretty good
-The Last Question is incredible short story
-Reid: Ian Banks – Culture series
-tried to write his own sci fi story, was a lotta fun
Having a lot of kids is great – wants to do it
Won’t be doing prompt engineering in 5 years
Will be text / voice in natural language to get computer to do what you want
eg, Be my therapist and make my life better; Teach me something I want to know
Reid: great visual thinker can get more out of DALL-E — will be an evolving set of human talents going that extra mile
How to define AGI
Equivalent of a median human that you can hire as a coworker – be a doctor, be a coder
Meta-skill of getting good at whatever you need
Super intelligence = smarter than all of humanity put together
Economic impacts will be huge in 20-30 years
Society may not tolerate that change – what is the new social contract
How to fairly distribute wealth
How to ensure access to AI systems (“commodity of the realm”)
Not worried about human fulfillment – we’ll always solve it
But concepts of wealth and access and governance will all change
Running largest UBI experiment in world – 5 year project
Tools for creatives — will be the great application for AI in short-term
Mostly not replacing, but enhancing their jobs
How do these LLMs differentiate from each other?
The middle layer is what will differentiate – the startups fine-tuning the base models, about the data flywheel, could include prompt engineering