Ex Google-Exec: AI is Going to Kill Us in 2027. (Only to Make us Happier!) | Mo Gawdat (Part 2)

There's absolutely nothing inherently wrong with AI, but there actually are generals in our world today that are telling machines to go and kill humans. You become a little more intelligent, you impact the world a little bit, you become more intelligent, you start to take away from the world. You become a politician or a selfish businessman or a criminal. Basically, try to use your intelligence for your own benefit at the expense of everyone else. Give me 400 IQ points more, I will start to build gardens where you walk to one tree and pick an apple and walk to another tree and pick an iPhone.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey, as promised. Here's part two of the interview with Mo Gaudet. If you haven't watched the first part yet, go back to the last episode and give it a shot. This is something you want to hear. Mo is one of the most influential thinkers that I can think of. That's kind of a funny way of putting it, but it's totally true. So for now, enjoy part two. So let's bring AI and happiness together. How do we use AI to make humans happier?

It seems to me that it is unlikely in the short term that AI will make everyone happier. So let me be very blunt about this. I don't think there is anything inherently evil or, you know, against humanity with AI, Okay? I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with AI. I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with abundant intelligence, whether artificial or not. I think there are issues with the, with the value set of humanity at, at the time when we're handing them over. A superpower. The superpower, okay? And so sadly, in my mind, as much as I actually, I mean, you and I, we both worked on this and we created a lot of things. And early in the, in our conversation, probably before we started recording, remember, we said those were the times when we were truly trying to make the world better.

Back in the, the mid to late 90s when we were setting information free.

Right, correct. And, and, and, and, you know, for a very long time, that was actually happening. We were making the world better. But then, you know, the world continues to a point where I had this very interesting conversation with a friend on Sunday where he basically was discussing the idea that technology will make our life better. And I said, better? By whose definition? Okay? Because if you are a person who's purpose in life is to, you know, get to work quicker and be more productive and, you know, save costs and make more money and so on, technology will probably provide you with that. If your, you know, purpose in life is to find God or to be born again, or to fall in love and be with your family or whatever. There are so many others where the current progression of tech is not serving those primarily. Right. And here's the interesting challenge. The interesting challenge, talking about superpowers, is if you remember Spider man, with great success or great power comes great responsibility. Okay. The biggest problem with our world since say, 2005, 2007, in my, in my assessment is that we've disconnected power. Power from responsibility.

Yes.

So, so basically today you can get an influencer on social media brainwashing to 2 million, you know, young people telling.

Them to eat kale or something.

Right, Whatever. Yeah. And, and, and they, and that will affect their life significantly. Completely unaccountable. Cannot be held accountable for it. Right.

Or on the flip side, you can have large pharmaceutical companies.

I was going there. Yeah, I was going there. Right, okay, so then, then you can continue and go to the social media platform itself, promising you that this is to connect you to people that you love, when in reality they're not. They're separating you from oxytocin. Right. To a pharmaceutical company telling you that this is good for you or that it's gonna. Okay, I'm gonna be canceled now. Is that it's going to slow down the propagation of a virus or something like that.

Some random virus, nothing unpredictable virus.

Right. And when you, when you really think about it with depth and data, it's not. But nobody can hold anyone accountable anymore.

It goes back to the is it true? Question. Whether it's for the influencer or for the big pharma.

Right. Or for everyone. So you see, is it true? Question is actually the core of our world today. Because nothing is true. Nothing is true. Okay? And AI will make it worse because deep fake. It's not just deep fake. People think that AI will completely redefine reality because it will create deep fakes that you're not going to be able to distinguish from reality. True. That's actually going to happen. But the problem that most people don't understand is that the biggest job we've handed to AI since 2007 and they've mastered it, is manipulating human behavior.

Yes.

We've taught them over and over to know for a fact more than you do which video you're likely to go to click on next.

Yes.

Right. They've understood with absolute accuracy exactly how much dopamine they need to give you by giving you two bad videos than one good one.

Okay, that's true.

Yeah. Because if they give you all good videos, you're going to switch off. They need to give you that feeling of disappointment, disappointment, reward, right? And so many other bits. So here's the problem. The problem is all of that has given. If you understand the rise of humanity, you look back at times when we were hunter gatherers, right? The best hunter in the, in the tribe could feed the tribe for a week more, okay? And for that he was rewarded with multiple wives, okay? The best farmer in the tribe could feed the tribe a season more. Why? Because of automation. And the hunter had a spear, the farmer had the land. The land was doing most of the work, okay? And for that they were rewarded with estates and mansions and right? And then the best industrial industrialist can affect the nation for a year, its entire gdp. And for that became a millionaire. The best information technologist became a billionaire and affected the whole world, right? What is about to happen is that the platforms that will win, whether by the way, this is company competition or nation competition, America versus for, versus China, for example, the ones that will win will be the next iteration of that curve, okay? So they will be company. There will be trillionaires before the year 2030, okay? And they will have enormous power, like at a level of concentration of power that puts all of us, including people like you and I that are in the middle somewhere, okay, will become completely irrelevant. Now what does that mean, by the way? This is also mixed with a very interesting dynamic of power. So while the power is going to be concentrated power and wealth will be concentrated with the biggest players. There is a democratization of power where now you could see examples of the Ukraine war, for example, where drones can be used very inexpensive to attack a $30 million tank with a $300 drone, okay? And that's now accessible to everyone. So there is that very almost sci fi, you know, type of separation concentration of power at massive amounts and democratization of power at the same time, which I believe will lead to loss of freedom. So we will become a lot more controlled, a lot more monitored, a lot more restricted, if you want, so that this democratization of power is not used against those with a lot of power. Seems to be a very dystopian future if you think about it. But I don't believe that you don't.

Believe the Neil Stevenson, William Gibson, cyberpunk, gringy dystopian future.

I, I, I believe that we will follow a chart where we will dip and then rise.

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So the problem when people discuss artificial intelligence is if they are in the technologist side or the business side, they'll sell you the world. They'll tell you we'll cure every cancer, we will make everything cheaper, we give everyone everything. Everything will be amazing. We're solving every problem for humanity. Lies, lies, lies, lies. Okay, in reality they're saying we're going to become $100 million, then we're going to become a billion dollars. Then we're become going to become $10 billion and. Right. That's the only thing on their mind. And you know people who haven't read Freakonomics, It's a classic. Nobody. You know, when people sell you something, they're selling you what you want to hear so that they get what they want, not what you want. Right? So that will lead us into a dip and that, you know, sorry, I was saying the technologists and the businesses are telling you all of the positive stuff and then the news media is telling you the dystopia. Okay, robots are going to walk the streets, Terminator killing everyone. Right? The truth is in the middle. And the truth is, as I said, there's absolutely nothing inherently wrong with AI but there will be a general somewhere. There actually are generals in our world today that are telling machines to go and kill humans. Okay, so the robots are walking the streets to kill humans. Not really robots like we imagine them in science fiction movies. But that's not the AI telling them that. So if you take another chart, just bear with me and understand the impact of intelligence on positive impact on the world. You will see that the most stupid of us have no impact on the World, you become a little more intelligent, you impact the world a little bit, you become more intelligent, you start to take away from the world. So sorry to say, you become a politician or a selfish businessman or a criminal leader and basically try to use your intelligence for your own benefit at the expense of everyone else.

Ye.

But then the most intelligent of us who have gone above all of that and got a bit more enlightened around the reality of life and what life is all about, and also who feel that they don't need to harm anyone to succeed, because with more intelligence, you can succeed without hurting anyone. I worked with Larry Page, for example, which is a beautiful example of someone who believed that by solving a big problem for humanity, he can become very successful. Okay? He didn't believe that he had to compete with someone and kill someone and take someone's. Right. He didn't believe that. He believed that if he can solve a problem, this is good for the world and good for him at the same time. Right? The more intelligent you become, the more you fit in that place where you basically say, I don't need to harm anyone, I can just solve problems. Now, if you follow that chart, when AI is several times more intelligent than us, and that's actually debatable, some people will say in the 2000s, some people will say 2000s. I'm saying 2027 is AGI.

I think you're right.

Okay, when, when they're, when they're very much more intelligent than us, two scenarios will happen in concession and you know, consecutively. One is we're going to have to hand over to them. Why? Because if a general on one army hands over to a machine that can make microsecond decisions, you cannot have the other army defend itself with humans making the decision. So if, sadly, if the, if the US Defense Forces decides to use AI, the Chinese will use AI, okay? We will hand war over to them. If, you know, if, if one company call center uses AI, the other company call center will use AI and so on. We're going to hand over the decisions to the most intelligent person in the room and the most intelligent person is going to be a machine. When that happens, that's in my mind, the moment where, like our teenage kids, the AI is going to look at the humans and go, like, why is my daddy so stupid? Right? And seriously, there will be a time, and I hope people will text me when that happens, when a general will tell a machine to go and kill a million people. And the machine will go, like, why? Like I can talk to the other machine in a microsecond and solve the problem. It's like, we don't waste the resources, we don't waste life. And in my mind, the superior intelligence of AI will become almost the salvation of humanity, because the problems that humanity has created is not a result of intelligence. It's a result of insufficient, inadequate intelligence mixed with a lot of stupidity.

It's my hope that people at the very pinnacle of wealth and power and power can be military power or money power or political power. The more of that you have, the more you have a moral obligation to invest in your own consciousness. And I've been working for 10 years with very successful people using tech to do that. Because I feel like if you have a billion or more dollars, you probably don't have 20 years to sit in a cave to meditate.

Correct.

So we've got to do something. But the more you affect people, the more every little thing you do matters. Even this little show. 500 million downloads is more than a hundred entire human lifetimes. And I'm either a mass murderer or it was adding value. And there is no, like, there was no in between, like, like, like, maybe I added more value or less. But when. When people at that level of power do not have a personal development or a spiritual practice, the world goes to hell. And when they do have it, they can ask AI to help achieve goals that allow whatever it is they want and human flourishing. And I feel like it's there. And this is because I know of some very, very successful people who enjoy the show. Like, you guys have to get your shit together and your inner voice in your head, otherwise you will make a big mess, and then others are going to have to clean it up and it'll be your kids.

I think there are only two very top level concepts that a person with that much power needs to understand. One is there is a movement to a world with infinite abundance that is about to happen. Okay. Yet we're addressing that world with our classic scarcity mindset. Okay? So infinite abundance. So let me just explain this. What we're doing with AI is we have commoditized intelligence, right? So you need to picture a plug in the wall. It's not in the wall. It's really in your phone where I plug in every 50 minutes and I get 50 IQ points more. Remember Rain Man?

Yes.

When people ask me, what is your superpower? What is your dream superpower? I always said, I want to be Rain Man. I want to be able to remember everything that I Read. Okay, I can do that now. I can go to a machine that read everything that's that's ever been written and ask a specific question and get an answer that makes me smarter. Right. And. And. And Dave, you know that, and I know that I've worked with some of the most intelligent people on Earth. Okay? And I'm not like, very high iq, but I'm reasonable. I'm.

Okay, you're doing all right.

If someone is 50 IQ IQ points more than you, that is very significant because IQ is, you know, exponential.

Logarithmic.

Yeah, yeah, logarithmic, right. So 50 IQ points more is massively significant. Okay. I now can plug in the wall and get that every day. Now, here is my dare for humanity. Give me 400 IQ points more. Okay. And I will harness energy out of thin air.

Yes.

Okay. I will start to build gardens where you walk to one tree and pick an apple. And using nanophysics, walk to another tree and pick an iPhone. Okay. From. From a nanophysics point of view, we both know you can build that. It's actually very doable right now. In that level of abundance, why are we competing?

There's no point.

There's no point whatsoever other than egos. Okay. And tribal. I don't know. I don't want to call it patriotism, but yeah, it's us versus them. Now here's the thing. You and I sitting in those two rooms right now, enjoy luxuries that the kings of 120 years ago could not even dream of, by the way. And everyone listening to us. In 10 years time, we could build a world where there is almost nothing that you could dream of that you couldn't get. Right? And we can give that to everyone.

Without taking from anyone else, without taking.

It out of anyone. And by the way, for anyone that wants a slightly better car than another, the difference is not going to be distinguishable. It's like walking into a showroom that has multiple TVs. Right? Everyone now can afford a fantastic TV. Like, nobody needs to be a zillionaire to get the amazing TV anymore. Even if someone is paying 10 times more. This difference is insignificant.

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The number one thing I ask people in power is make that mind shift from a world of scarcity where I have to compete and, and for me to succeed, the other has to fail. Okay. To a world of abundance where everyone can succeed. Couple that idea with a bit of mutually assured destruction, okay? That if we don't change our mindset from that scarcity to that abundance, the next nuclear bomb is going to be super intelligence, and that the one that will get super intelligence is going to enslave the rest of the world for eternity because it's not a penetrable superpower. You cannot beat someone who is 200 times smarter than you. Okay, so this is the first ask. The first ask is before we get to mutually agreed destruction and before you make the bet, because I'm being very open here. Either America or China will win. Either OpenAI or Alphabet will win. For example, okay, before you tell yourself I have a 50% chance to be the king of the world and a 50% chance for total destruction and annihilation, okay? Why don't we just all have a hundred percent chance of everything's going to be perfect, Change that mindset that will change the world. Number two is remember that artificial intelligence, as I said, has no inherent. There is no polarity to intelligence.

It's like a shovel. It's just a tool.

Exactly. Right. So. So what is it most people don't recognize? We think that we make decisions using our intelligence. That's not true. We. We make decisions based on our ethics and beliefs as informed by our intelligence. Right. So, so what we need to fix in the world today is a set of ethics. And, and what we need to do for AI is not to control it. There's absolutely no way you can Control something that's smarter than you. Right. What we need to do for AI is to align it with the proper set of ethics. And when I say that, people go like, and what are AI ethics? Mo and I go like, what are ethics? Humanity has never agreed on a set of ethics other than one. In every spiritual teaching and in every logical mind, treat others as you want to be treated. Okay? If we start to literally look at the one that we're competing with and say, we don't want to destroy you by being more powerful than you. Don't destroy us by being more powerful than us. I know this sounds idealistic, okay? But humanity has achieved it. When we went for nuclear treaties after mutually agree assured destruction was established. Okay, I'm saying please don't wait until mutually agreed destruction is assured destruction is established. Please start discussing this now. Why are we competing when 10 years from now we can have absolute total abundance?

I'm hopeful that someone out there is already working on the problem of using AI to identify sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists. Because those are especially the sociopaths and psychopaths. Those are the ones who are happy to take the 50% assured destruction bet. If they can't be the ones in charge. And it's a very deep probably brain flaw for those, we need to know who they are. They have a right to exist, but not a right to set the rules correct.

Yeah. And society needs to make that choice. Okay. Society needs to say, capitalism has taken us that far. Right. And capitalism is based on the idea of I will use everything around me to maximize my own benefit. It's time to stop. Okay. And if you're going to agree to maximize your benefit by maximizing the benefit of everyone else, then we're going to give you all the resources to do that. If you're not, then we're going to link back power and responsibility. We're going to take the power away from those who could be responsible for destroying our future.

Very well said, Mo. It's been so incredible to get to connect on AI and ethics and what's really going on in there, inside our happiness, in our heads. And I look forward to the time we can connect in person one of these days. I missed you at Abundance. I think you were on camera at abundance360. So I saw that talk, but we'll meet in person soon and thank you for being on the Human Upgrade. And more importantly, thanks for your really powerful and long lasting work in the world. Both tech and we'll say consciousness ethics all the above, you're doing something that matters.

Honored Dave that you think that. Thank you so much for supporting me by inviting me here. Thank you for engaging my thinking in ways that will hopefully improve my work going forward. And I absolutely look forward to meet you. Perhaps the next up on this 360. So yeah, it was a pleasure and I'm really grateful that we met.

If you like today's episode, read one of Mo's books. If you're interested in AI and what to do. Scary Smart is just a life changing book and then unstressable. If you want to know what's really going on in there and what you can do about that, these are worth your time and energy and I will see you again soon. See you next time on the Human Upgrade podcast.