00:41:32 · John Collison, Sam Altman
[00:41:32] S0: Like, [00:41:34] S1: it'll just work. It'll be reliable. You'll, like, never have... You'll just, like, give it more complex tasks, it'll do all of those things. [00:41:40] S0: Computer use dynamic is very interesting to me because not everyone is embracing the new agentic future with open arms, but it's not totally within their control because you can just have an agent using a computer. Where do you think that dynamic goes, this sort of cat and mouse? [00:42:04] S1: Like, rough instinct is the world will... I mean, people are gonna fight this in both directions [00:42:10] S0: Mhmm. [00:42:10] S1: But eventually converge on something like... You're allowed to, like, tell an AI to use your computer on your behalf, including software. [00:42:18] S0: Always talk about that, but isn't it a bit like the semantic web? It's, like, a really nice conceptual idea. Yeah. [00:42:23] S1: I was gonna say, like, I don't think this is, like, so black and white. I don't think I have, like, a super high degree of confidence of how this is gonna play out. As a consumer, I feel, like, somewhat annoyed if I can't [00:42:33] S0: Yes. [00:42:35] S1: Have an AI automate tasks on my own computer. Like, I want it to feel like it's my agent doing what I ask, but then it gets... Like, I don't I don't wanna have to, like, go do something like this. Yeah.
00:42:43 · John Collison
[00:42:43] S0: Yeah. I note a very interesting dynamic right now, which is every company is really eager to add AI to their products in a very specific way, which is there is a tab or pop up widget or something that gives you a messaging type UI. And it's often surprisingly capable. And so you can say, hey, I actually want to return my most recent order. And then you're kind of surprisingly impressed when it actually is able to find your most recent order, and, you know, it's a bit janky, and it can do all those things. However, no consumer really wants this UI because consumers have strong... Not immovable, but strong preferences for their existing primary chat app, the kind of top of wallet app that they open Yeah. When they want to go to do something. And what they want is to be able to say, hey, go find my recent order on this business and refund it or something like that. And I noticed that businesses are really reluctant to allow people to use those businesses inside another AI app. It's like, oh, we're gonna lose control in our motive, whatever. And it just strikes me as fine because your defensibility probably did not come from your ability to put together HTML. Your defensibility came from the brand loyalty and the product And the new UI is that agentic interaction inside ChatGPT or Gemini, you know, or whatever it is. But all businesses disagree with me. And they're very good at business. Maybe I they're
00:44:32 · Sam Altman, John Collison
[00:44:32] S1: mean, again, I have, like, a bias here, but I so directionally agree with you. Like, I have such an extreme preference to buy something from Amazon versus some random e commerce vendor that I don't know if I can return to or I don't know if I can trust to deliver it quickly or something. Like, if I ask Cheeky Pint to buy me something, and I can choose Amazon versus some other thing, like, 10 out of 10 times I click Amazon. I pay a higher price. I have just, like, such... Yes. And it has nothing to do with, like, my experience of clicking on amazon.com. [00:45:05] S0: Exactly. [00:45:06] S1: And now, I think you could say we have not done a good enough job offering partners a platform inside of ChatGPT if they don't want this to happen, but... And again, I maybe I'm really biased think Amazon's, like, in a great... I think they're in a great place of commerce, it's, like, much more authentic. [00:45:23] S0: Yeah. Amazon, in particular, has this amazing defensibility via the fulfillment network. And so you can use Amazon kind of from anywhere. [00:45:30] S1: I super trust that. Yeah.
00:45:30 · Sam Altman, John Collison
[00:45:30] S1: I super trust that. Yeah. [00:45:32] S0: No. I'm just really struck by this dynamic. Like, my new thinking, in particular with regards to Agenda Commerce, but also anything, is any time there is a web form field that you as a human are filling out, these days, that is below your pay grade. Because you are probably not inventing that information for the first time. Like, we've all filled out the medical forms where it's like, oh, your family history or whatever. Yeah. And that's so frustrating because how many times have you filled out your dad's your mom's medical history and things like that? It just... It feels so wasteful. But there's million versions of that. You are never inventing new information for a web form. [00:46:07] S1: I would be so happy to never do, like, fake work at a computer again. Yeah. [00:46:13] S0: And my argument is that any web form is basically fake work. [00:46:16] S1: I agree. But but, like, the the... I mean, I was, like, one of the very earliest adopters that I knew of, of those, like, plugins that put in your, like, name and address, very promissory, you know, because I was just like, this is... I cannot do this again. [00:46:28] S0: Mhmm. [00:46:29] S1: But I kinda feel like that using, like, most of the web at this point.
00:46:29 · Sam Altman, John Collison
[00:46:29] S1: But I kinda feel like that using, like, most of the web at this point. [00:46:33] S0: Yeah. I just find this phenomenon really interesting where businesses right now are really attached to their HTML and mobile apps as sources of business defensibility. And it just feels very trans... Like, either they're wrong and it's not a source of defensibility, or it may be, but it's transitory and they just need to get over [00:46:54] S1: The last example of this that I think we really witnessed was, like, the app stores. Mhmm. The iPhone app stores specifically. And I remember every start up was like... Or many start ups, like most of the YC batch was like, I'm gonna build an iPhone app. This is like new distribution. This is awesome. I can do a new thing I couldn't do before. And many new startups got created. And all of the big companies felt like they had to make one, but they kind of didn't want to, because they're like, oh, I'm gonna like hand my, you know, relationship with my consumer over to Apple. And it was great for my... [00:47:23] S0: It was just a new UI. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna go more rapid fire. People complain about bench maxing. Is that a real concern? Are OpenAI models bench maxed? Do you... Are you actually Rick Rubining it where you just feel like the vibe of this model is right and you don't care what sweepench gives us?
00:47:23 · John Collison, Sam Altman
[00:47:23] S0: It was just a new UI. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna go more rapid fire. People complain about bench maxing. Is that a real concern? Are OpenAI models bench maxed? Do you... Are you actually Rick Rubining it where you just feel like the vibe of this model is right and you don't care what sweepench gives us? [00:47:39] S1: Maybe there are, like, two things we should really care about models being good at. One is, like, you know, scientific discovery and doing things that people cannot do. And the other is, like, being enjoyable to work with. And I don't think we have great benchmarks for being enjoyable to work with. I'm actually not sure we have great benchmarks for the smartest scientists either, but we endeavor not to bench max. And I I I kind of... I keep thinking that bench maxing is, like, over as a phenomenon, and people keep doing it. [00:48:14] S0: So are you better than other labs at not getting sucked in by the siren call of Benchmax? [00:48:20] S1: I believe we are better at that. [00:48:21] S0: It feels like... I don't think [00:48:24] S1: we've always been better at that in our history. I believe we are better than that right now. [00:48:27] S0: It feels like the industry is still figuring out the being nice to work with, where there was the glazing era. And more recently, there was the stroppy, ornery era of models that were anti glazing, and as a result, tried to disagree with you and nitpick at you on every minor thing. The current ones are pretty good, actually.