00:25:20 · Danny Fortson, Jaron Lanier
[00:25:20] S10: Gotcha. [00:25:21] S7: So that's how... That's where that comes from. Prime unifying scientists. Right? And so... But the thing is, what is unique... I have a funny job title, is not unique. There are a lot of those in Silicon Valley. What is unique is I speak my mind even when it's pretty unfiltered as it has been in this interview. And I just make clear, I'm not speaking for Microsoft. And the thing I wanna point out, and we have an arrangement for that. That's... And Microsoft stock is fine. We haven't imploded. And I just want more Silicon Valley companies to notice that and allow their people to speak. One of the things that I find very depressing is this long sequence of people who feel they have to leave places like, well, Meta, famously, but also Anthropic and OpenAI [00:26:04] S10: Google.
00:26:04 · Danny Fortson, Jaron Lanier
[00:26:04] S10: Google. [00:26:05] S7: Protest what's going on. And how much better would we be as a community and as servants of mankind if instead of people feeling they had to leave... I mean, we are becoming a de facto government of the world. Why can't we have debates and open discussions within ourselves? Why can't somebody in Meta or OpenAI or Anthropic or Google or wherever say, you know, I think what we're doing... I love the community, love the technology. I think what we're doing is the wrong way of bringing it out. I really think this is gonna do damage. Why can't somebody say that without having to quit? That's a huge cultural problem. When you asked before, how did this all happen? That's a lot of the mechanism. The problem is that when you have a community that overall rejects the idea of discussion or disagreement within it, you end up having this thing that narrows and narrows and narrows and ties itself into a little knot. And since there's no such thing as a perfect thought or perfect understanding, the tighter you get, the more likely you are to fall into something that's, like, ridiculous. [00:27:09] S10: Right. On that happy note. [00:27:12] S7: Oh, yeah. I met my optimist. Yeah. Sure. Look. If you look at the history of people, we've survived all kinds of nonsense in the past. Some of it wasn't as different as it might seem from this. You know? We've often made each other suffer terribly for it.
00:27:12 · Jaron Lanier, Danny Fortson
[00:27:12] S7: Oh, yeah. I met my optimist. Yeah. Sure. Look. If you look at the history of people, we've survived all kinds of nonsense in the past. Some of it wasn't as different as it might seem from this. You know? We've often made each other suffer terribly for it. [00:27:27] S10: Yeah. I have a sense, and I'd love to get your thoughts on this, that that the people building this technology from Elon Musk to Dario Amodei, Sam Altman view themselves as the hero in the story. Like, are going to save us all. [00:27:46] S7: Mhmm. [00:27:46] S10: And it feels dangerous that they're like, well, okay. We were making this doomsday device, but don't worry. We are the virtuous ones that are gonna build it in a way that actually makes it alright for all of us. And it feels like it's almost juvenile, this kind of view as, like, they are they are our heroes, and they're gonna save us.
00:28:12 · Jaron Lanier, Danny Fortson
[00:28:12] S7: So one of the things is that because computer networks often have a structure that... Where the things called network effects creates a natural monopolies on one layer or another that then become more and more reinforced, they do have a tendency to create these mega powerful individuals at the center of them. And I would prefer to see better governance of these things because they are so important and influential. But at any rate, we have a rather small number of individuals who are now the beneficiaries of those network effects. And they tend to be, not always, but they tend to be a type of person who's better at dealing with the digital stuff and looking away from what might be side effects of it. But, you know, the the people are all different. They're not exactly cookie cutters. So another thing that happened is people got addicted to their own, devices. So some of these people I've known a little and some of them a little more over the years, and some of them have really changed from interacting with their own things. Like, I I think Elon Musk was changed by Twitter Yeah. By the constant interaction with it to become more narrow and hardened in a way. The same thing happened to Donald Trump, who I used to know a little bit. And now that's not true for all of the people in this position, but the overall setup doesn't allow somebody to be a good actor in that role. There's not really a way to be a good actor while [00:29:43] S10: As a CEO of one of these companies? [00:29:46] S7: Right. Because you'd just be destroyed.
00:29:46 · Jaron Lanier, Danny Fortson
[00:29:46] S7: Right. Because you'd just be destroyed. [00:29:49] S10: Because that's the Anthropics whole thing is that we are the good guys. We are the ones doing this
00:29:55 · Jaron Lanier
[00:29:55] S7: the most. So let let me say a couple things about Anthropic. One is I have many friends at Anthropic, and many of the people I respect the most and think are are, in fact, the best human actors in the community work there. Yeah. That said, if somebody really feels a need to call out that what the company is doing is wrong, they have to leave, and that's a drag. Okay. But let us let us leave that aside for a second. Anthropic, like OpenAI, was founded on the self proclamation that we're the good guys. I mean, OpenAI is called OpenAI because that was supposed to signify being a good guy. And Anthropic, though, is the most religious of them all. Like, Anthropic has teams internally who are concerned with the well-being of the model as opposed to the human users, like this idea that the model itself is having feelings. And they've said the best way to ensure human safety is if you make the model feel good, it'll be less likely, although no guarantee, it'll be less likely to do damage to people. So, yeah, Anthropic, in terms of self regard, they definitely think they're the best people. And in some ways, they are. They have hired people. Like, I mean, I I have to say, if you are an ethical, interesting person working in AI and you want a job, you're more likely to get it at Anthropic than anywhere else. However, the Anthropic official position is more worshipful of the new AI god than anyone else. And, ultimately, that's so damaging that it it trumps anything else. And so I think when you're embedded in the community, when you're in a deep belief community, you lose perspective. And I I really believe the people involved with that will someday come to have a sense that they could have done better and will realize that they were just embedded in this crazy cult like atmosphere. Again,