The Next Renaissance: Why the Physical World Wins in the AI Era

All right, everyone, welcome to the season three premiere of Guilty by Association. I am your special guest for today, Ben Curran. To open the season up, I wanted to go straight to the source of so many things, kind of AI innovation, what we've been talking about so much. Our guest today was, and in any, in many ways is still kind of at the epicenter of one of the biggest, if not the biggest technological explosion we've seen ever. He is the former head of Global go to market at OpenAI and was one of the architects around how we, everyone in the world first met ChatGPT. In that role, he led the team that took AI out of the lab and into the hands of 100 million people in just two months and in parallel built out the foundation of strategic partnerships at OpenAI. He is now one of the most sought after strategic AI advisors, I guess I'd say, in the entire world on a mission to show how technology can, can actually make us more human, not less human as we grow. He believes in that the more digital our lives become, the more premium our physical communities become. He is a global futurist, a boardroom advisor to the Fortune 100 and first week into the new release of his brand new book, the Next Renaissance AI and the Expansion of Human Potential. I'm very pleased to welcome our guest, Zach Cass. Zach, welcome.

Thanks for having me, Ben. First day, by the way.

First day, one day in. Yeah, well, I think I'd be crazy not to start with, at least for so many of, I think our listeners, our team, our customers. The fact that you were inside and leading the team at OpenAI in that moment where AI went from research to reality and we all started using it over that kind of fall, winter, that period of time. Talk to us about that, talk to us about that journey. Just kind of reflect on that now, couple years later.

Well, a lot, yeah, I mean a lot can and will forever be. Not for maybe forever, but for a long time. A lot can and will be said about those days. For context. OpenAI had been building frontier research for almost six years. In 2021, when we launched GPT 3.5, which was the, the state of the art. We launched GPT 3.5 in May 2022 and GPT early 2021. And what was fascinating about the launch of GPT 3 in, I think January that year was that no one cared. And people look back on this and I'll go into rooms, I'll give a big talk, I'll say who used GPT3. And an incredible number of people raised their hand and I don't actually think they're lying. I think that they've either misremembered using GPT3 or they're associating it with GPT4 or some other technology. But very few people actually took advantage of the API. And the reason was that it was slow, it wasn't very good and it was actually very expensive. GPT3 cost, I think about $10 per million tokens. And to put it in context for listeners today, GPT4 today costs about 30 cents per million tokens. Right. So you're talking an order of magnitude cost difference for at the time, the state of the art model. Now I tell this story because what seemed obvious to us had no commercial viability. And the, this matters because a lot of things that look like toys eventually become something way better. And it for me was one of the epiphanies. One of my three epiphanies at OpenAI was watching this research truly go from science project, toy, something that I can show my friends and family or a stranger on an airplane, to meaningfully changing The World in 18 Months is a reminder that you should not discount all of the really cool breakthroughs in the labs right now around the world. It's just on the marquee. Amazing things are happening. Are they scalable?

No.

Are they supremely expensive? Yes. Are they going to improve our lives soon enough? Totally. And that is one reason to be really bullish on the future for humans. Which is, which is that the knock on consequences of AI are really positive now. We watched as GPT3 went from like I joined, it was a million in revenue, a little less than a million in revenue. We ticked up to 10 million in revenue over the next 12 months. I was pretty nervous. And then we launched GPT 3.5. And GPT 3.5 was meant to answer the, the call to all of the, that all the CEOs and, and, and companies were making. We want this better, faster, cheaper. And it was way better, way faster, way cheaper. And still no one showed up. So now we have this API that's, you know, it's not collecting cobwebs but like it's, it's not doing all that well. And we're sitting around like what is the problem here? Why is no one building with this? And so we, we have this idea, which is simple now, but actually didn't come to us till quite a bit later in October to build a web app that would allow CEOs and other people of influence to use the technology in a simple way and then tell their CTO about it. You know where this is going? We build ChatGPT. Part of the reason it's named so poorly is because it's meant as a research preview. To show, literally, we call it a research preview.

Show what's possible with this awesome product that we have. That this API thing, this is just almost marketing for your API product.

It's not almost, Ben. It's marketing. It's marketing for the API product. That's why there was no compute assigned to it. It's why we called it a research preview. And the whole idea was we want to show people what GPT 3.5 is capable of. Now, on November 30, when it launches, between then and the end of the year, it takes off. Right? You know, now that numbers are published, but I want to make sure I don't say anything that's not published. But hundreds of millions of users, tons of growth. It should serve as a reminder to everyone that the application layer matters more than anything else. Right? For five months, anyone could have built ChatGPT because it was built as a reminder. On GPT 3.5, there was no research breakthrough. The technology that was built on had been publicly available for five months. No one built it. We did. And it serves to me as my second epiphany, this constant reminder. The application layer matters a ton. You have to give people technology in ways that comport to how they view the world and what they want to use. And the really amazing thing is it took a magical AOL Instant messenger, truly a technology that had existed in some form or another for 30 years almost for people to be like, now I get it. Now I understand what this can do.

One thing that's funny, and as someone who works in the world of tech, your story was super relatable. When you were talking about struggles with the API, we went from a million revenue to 12, and everything's relatable. And it's like, oh, yeah. And then we just got hundreds of millions of users no longer relatable. That's fantastic. I'm curious and what's interesting to me,

have you tried shipping a magic AOL Instant Messenger?

Yeah, I have. We have not done that. Maybe that's it. Like the magic. Go back, play the hits. Aol, play the hits. I guess. But what's. What's funny too, is when it comes to product, usually when we release features or products, you know, if it's going to be great, like, hey, I'm not sure about this. Like, you know, and it Kind of there's things to figure out and usually if you build some great, you're like, I can't wait, this is going to change everything. For you guys. It was kind of the opposite, which is really interesting of there's this thing we're going to do and there's all these unintended consequences. I'm just curious from a personal standpoint, I think people will really appreciate hearing this from you. At what point after that kind of viral moment or that unexpected change the world moment, was it a day, was it a week, was it even beforehand? At what point did you realize everything's different than it was before that moment? How long did that take before maybe even you personally? I won't ask for everyone at OpenAI, but for you personally, there was a

pretty reasonable anticipation that we were getting closer and closer to something that would really matter. And then it was sort of like, well, you know, I think, I think what no one, I think what people expected is that it would arrive, we would diffuse through the enterprise, that like enterprises would buy this and then they would get for all the magic, which honestly would have been a very safe bet that like Duolingo would bring this first to the app and people be like, you tried the new Duolingo, it's crazy. It can like, you know, understand, you know, your three year old who's learning to speak Spanish.

Right.

And so it was probably a week, I think it was probably a week into the launch this, this, this research preview where people were like, yeah, oh yeah. And it was definitely by, definitely by the end of the year for sure was clear because by January we were, I was going out to dinner and there was like, there were a moment, there were some weird moments, I think for a lot of people at OpenAI where there started to be like notoriety and other weird things that obviously now that, that came for a long time with OpenAI employees that may have changed now in Silicon Valley and I live in Santa Barbara now in part because I, it gives me an escape from all that. But I don't think that many people had any question by the end of the year. And I think a lot of people knew something really big had happened by the end of the week.

I want to try to pull us into a little bit of this is the topic of your book, but it's also really, really applicable for our world Mannequin. So I think everyone, kind of our team and our kind of community will really appreciate this. Something that you've said that I really, really think is interesting. And I Want to just kind of double click into this and maybe riff together on what this means. I think this is counterintuitive, but right. That AI doesn't pull us away from humanity, it pushes us back towards it. And maybe I'm not perfectly summarizing that, but maybe talk about that. I think you've got a unique perspective on how, how this is evolving and how the world is evolving around it.

The book tries to accomplish a lot and in part I think it does its job, although it has its flaws, but one of the parts, a lot of the book and the reason I'm proud to have written it is I think it's pretty timeless. I think it will make sense to someone in 50 years because it tends to lean on sort of self evident truths as it makes a case for what we are building. And one of the self evident truths that I, that I sort of lay out very early is that humans are happiest when we are in physical community with friends and family, places of worship, dining room tables outside, and that there isn't really any argument that that is true, that that is not true. Like it's, it's. The Harvard happiness study went on for 80 years, proved it. The Costa Rica happiness study proved it. There are hundreds of deathbed studies of thousands of people. And we are born desperately wanting our parents and we are raised desperately wanting our parents and our friends and family. And it is only when we discover that we must work, that we must toil in order to provide for the next generation that we start, we start to shift. And I'm not arguing that work doesn't have purpose and I, I want to be careful how, how far I go here. But we are born and then we, and then we die actually desperately wanting to be around our friends and family, talking about how we had spent more time with them. That's, that is like, you know, they should say it's like death, taxes and wanting to be around people you love so much so that, you know, reclusive behavior has like really, really been weaned out of the gene pool. I mean it's very hard to find in large part because recluses don't, don't procreate and that the social creatures, our most social ancestors did better, fared better produce more social people. And we are now a population of people. That's why we're all here, desperately want community which is why most of the people that you serve want to build communities of people that share the same values and that they actually only want that like, you know, People are willing to move their entire family across the world, in some cases to find groups of people that share those values. And that self evident truth is a line that we pull throughout the book, which is to say that if this continues to be true, and we don't have any reason to believe that it won't be, then in the pursuit of building physical spaces in which we want to live, places of worship, dining room tables and outdoor spaces, we should view AI as a technology in that pursuit. And it's not hard for me to make the argument that this technology, if we use it right, will do more for that pursuit than any technology, maybe any technology prior, except electricity, on sort of any relative basis. And that is a fun argument. That's a fun position to take because it's one that we can all root for. And it actually is kind of hard to attack unless you want to say no. AI is going to rewire our brain such that we don't want to be around each other. What we really want is to be in our technology. And the evidence points totally the other direction.

I think that's right. And it's funny, we've talked a lot about that internally. And the world that we live in and that we serve at Vanica is the world of community association management. And I think at least in the last 30 or 40 years, so much of that has been, we've been distracted from that. Like those positive kind of community, actual real interactions with the monotony or the minutiae of kind of the transactional nature of that, like, what does it take to pay your dues and do your accounting and do these things. But the promise of community, to your point, it's like, hey, this is like people with shared values or shared something, you know, you can trust something about these people who are also in this area can be so great. So that's what we're very hopeful for. And what we're starting to see is that AI and technology in general can strip out so much of the distraction and actually elevate our ability to build real community. And so I know you're thinking about that in many different ways, but curious if you've seen examples of that or what you're most excited about, you know, what's happening around the world now.

Not only am I thinking about it, it's like a lot of what I think about. I mean, and I. And I'm living, so. So to be clear, I woke up one day in San Francisco quite unhappy. If we're, if we're being totally honest Working the greatest job that anyone in my lineage probably ever worked, certainly on an economic basis, but. But. But maybe on any other basis. And by the way, Benjamin Franklin is my fifth great grandfather. In fact, behind me is one of his first spoon and a small statue that he had on his desk on which he wrote the Art of Making money plenty. And I am often reminded that what I get to do. What I often thought about the fact that what I get to do, even he would have been blown away by totally and somehow I was just totally unhappy. And not even somehow, for good reason. I was overworked. I was in a city that I. That I didn't really care for. And now I'm pretty comfortable talking about it. I was in a relationship that didn't. That didn't serve me or my partner at the time. And we broke up and I decided to pack my car and move home to Santa Barbara to move with my parents, who were actually sick at the time with the idea that I would hang out with them for a little bit and sort of reconnect. And I never went back. I never went back to San Francisco. I mean, I've been back since. But my car filled with stuff. I unloaded it and eventually moved in with my parents to rebuild a life in a community that mattered to me. Where I'd grown up, where my mom grew up. And of course, people can tear this story down for all sorts of reasons. He had means. What a paradise. Totally agreed. Fair. All those are reasonable knocks. And also, I walked away from more money than I'll probably ever be able to calculate from a life that was very. That I could have figured out how to make sense of, to be in a space that I wanted to be. Because I realized at an age much younger than I think a lot of my peers do, this is actually what matters. And so now, not only do I live that truth, I think about it a ton. I just think about it all the time when I sort of wander around and it shows up now lots of places. So, like, one of the things that I'm seeing more and more of. Well, first of all, all the signs right now are pointing to a return to community. You see this. I think lots of parents are seeing this over subscription record sales for concerts, record sales for shows, not just Broadway, not just the expensive ones, but local theater is actually having a resurgence. Arts and lectures are booming all over the country, and community spaces are coming back into vogue.

And maybe that's the tie in to something you said earlier of where this is going. You talked about the model improvements when we went from $10 per million tokens to $0.30 and now the improvements. And it truly will be, maybe intelligence will be too cheap to meter effectively. And what we've seen with that is there's so much different types of productivity that can equally be rebounded by that. And what we're seeing is the demand for, whether it's the service or the demand for community, we'll just call it if our broad kind of product and the product that our customers provide is community, that community experience the demand. It's kind of this Jevons paradox of the cheaper it gets, the more of it you want to consume, not just the less you pay for it. And so our customers are sure they're more efficient with certain back office tasks, but what we're seeing more and more is they're doing things in their communities that they've never done before, they've never been able to do. Or there's demand that they can meet that they never expected. And you have to look for that signal right now, but I think soon it'll kind of come find us, maybe talk about that. Like, what is this reality of kind of unmetered, democratized intelligence going to mean? Or could it mean we're both optimists with an optimistic lens. What could that mean for society and for community?

Unmetered intelligence follows the rich tradition of technology which expands human potential. So I'll remind everyone, what one person can do today in the developed world is about 90% more than what one person could do in 1995. It's about 400% more than what one person could do in 1960, and about a million percent more than what one person could do In 1800. So on an economic, on a GDP basis alone, we are just ripping. And you can observe it sort of everywhere. It's why when we had 100 million people on Earth, we could barely feed anyone. Now with 8 billion people, we can actually feed almost 6 and a half billion very regularly. And all of China and all of India have achieved food security, which is a remarkable feat that we just, I don't think, talk about enough. Despite the fact that we have way more people, we also have way more for them because we're more productive on a per capita basis. But the results of that don't actually just apply to economic boom. They apply to a bunch of other things because there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't show up on economic reports that matter somehow in some cases even more. And one of that falls into the camp of scientific discoveries. So we are just going to learn a lot more. And unmuted intelligence doesn't ask what if there were a million oncological researchers? It asks what if we had 10,000 oncological researchers that were a thousand times more productive? And the indicators here are just flashing green. We discovered our first antibiotic in 60 years recently because of AI. We split HIV out of DNA recently because of AI. Baby KJ for parents of young children who are everyone is so, you know, you get you. I just remember we got our first blood work back. So relieved to see no, you know, weird anomalies. And baby kj, the first infant in the United States, first infant in the world to get a custom gene therapy in May last year to cure it of a previously immutable disease that would have killed it by the age of four. So we are building technology that is improving human experience in invisible sort of incredible scientific ways. And then there's a whole camp of stuff that exists where we are simply not doing it or where it is so bottled neck that it doesn't even show up in an economic report. And some of that includes services.

We have the opportunity now to describe the boundaries we want to be on the other side of. We want to break through the four minute mile. If we have a security system, we want it to monitor for and protect us from threats instead of, well, there's time we'd have to have people watching it. All the, there's all these false, you know, maybe false boundaries, maybe I'd think of as, as false constraints that we're starting to see those things break through and you know, hopefully it's rewiring our expectations of, of what's possible.

I also try to in the book remind people that if we can strip all the mundane work away, then it enter it introduces an even bigger question which the book asks, which is what? What happens if we actually solve the economic problem? And we can talk about that. But I actually even just where we are now, right now, let's reinvest in the physical world. Like even if we all keep doing the same amount of work.

Yeah, yeah, yep.

Let's remember that the device is not necessarily our friend and the purpose of this thing is to make us more productive, but not actually to spend our free time. And you know, I cannot stress this enough by the way Ben, my hottest take, somehow all my takes is that we will work less. It's like people hate this take and I get so much vitriol for it. People talk about how aloof I sound. I got media trained to stop talking about it because it implies this weird future. And I'm like, the reason people hate this take, there's a generational divide. Older generations hate this take because they don't like the thought of their own retirement. There's this identity displacement issue where they're like, this is scary. Younger generations hate this take because they're like, no, the system is built against me. I'm going to have to work my entire life, more than my parents, just to afford a house. I get that. But the thing I discovered in writing the book, the number one reason that people cannot imagine a world with more free time, I learned by asking a simple question, which is, anytime someone said to me, we're going to work more, not less, I say, could I please see your screen time? My only response, my only question back. And the answer to this, the answers vary from, why does it matter to my phone? Actually, my phone's dead. Sorry. My phone's dead. And in all of the work in the book, the thing that I discovered more than anything else is the reason we can't imagine a world where we work less is because we forgot what it might feel like. We forgot what free time might feel like. All the interstitial moments in the hallways before bed, when we're traveling, even on vacation. Somehow people sacrifice their free time. And I don't know how else to put it except to say, I understand why we have so much cynicism right now, because we've actually somehow forgotten the whole point of technology, which is to be invisible. It's to improve our lives in ways that do not require constant active involvement. And that all of the stuff that people aspire to accomplish in their life is now more achievable than ever. And they have sacrificed it in many ways for a dopamine rush. And I just desperately hope that one day, I think we will, when we get to wake up and work, less people will get to answer the question, what do I want to do today? And I just really hope it's go outside with my friends and family.

You and I both think about this big future, and we're super excited about it all the time. We think about this big future, and we're optimistic about it. I think there's a lot of people who understand that there is this seed change happening, all this kind of momentum is happening. But today they do feel the constraints of, hey, I just am trying to survive. I'm trying to build my small business. I'm just trying to go to work, and I don't know where to start. And I'm scared. And maybe it's not even about one of those four bad outcomes. I just don't know, am I going to get left behind? How do I keep up? What do I do from a hyper practical, really short term perspective, like, what do you say to those folks? What do you say is, you know, what to be aware of, what to be excited about, what to look for, what to do, just how to position your own thinking.

Okay, so the first thing I would say is I have exceptional sympathy for anyone who feels caught in a crossfire right now. Like this wave of change and what we call the transition period is weird and there's no other way of putting it. And uncertainty breeds fear. And, and there, there's plenty of reason for people who don't know what to do next to, to feel like they're in trouble. But in terms of practical guidance, to best leverage this technology, I have three the first anchor to your mission, vision and values. So right now, if you're, are you building a small business? Are you raising a family, Are you building a community? Right? Whatever you're doing, what is it that you Want to accomplish? 3, 5, 10 year horizon, what is your mission, vision and values? And be very clear on that. And the reason I emphasize this is because it is so easy right now to talk about all the things you're going to do. And I think a lot of what plagues, especially young people, is this vision of grandeur that for some people feel more achievable than ever. We're raising a population, showing them influencers who travel the world and scientists who are discovering molecules and sports legends who are 18 years old. And these kids are like, I could be anything. And it's like, yeah, but what do you really, what do you want? Like, and when you're 18, how can you possibly answer that? But when you're 25. When you're 30, when you're 35, you get a much clearer vision of being like, this is the thing I want. And I'm challenging people to actually define what it is they want. Mission, vision and values. And the reason you have to anchor to that is because you have to be very adaptable to your ways and means. So many people will tell me, I do this thing. Okay, well, by the way, the thing could be anything. I am an accountant. Okay, what do you, does that define you? Well, no, but this is my job. Okay, fine. By the way, I think accountants will exist for all sorts of reasons. But like, that's not your mission. Vision, values. That's your occupation. That's your ways and means.

Right?

Simply saying, this is what I am doesn't actually answer the question, what are you trying? What do you. What are you aiming to accomplish? By the way, our parents and our grandparents did not have this luxury. They actually had to put themselves on a track and say, this is the track I'm on. I have no other choice because it's not like, you know, there is nothing else for me out there. And you kind of had to agree. Like, you sort of had to agree. If you want to feed your family, you got to go, go get a job at a. At a factory and climb. Climb your way up the factory ladder. That's not true anymore. What you can learn, what you can do expands. And then the third is learn how to learn. So people come to me all the time. They're like, I was so scared of AI. Then I realized that actually a bunch of things holding me back were related to my inability to do things that this technology can do for me. Some of them are very tactical. Some of them are far more strategic. And the thing. The major breakthrough for me was that I could remember another time that I had learned how to do something. For many people, we have not challenged them in their life to learn anything other than the thing that they got their job doing. The problem now is that we are building people an inch deep and a mile wide because they can do anything, but we're not actually challenging them to master anything. And by the way, mastery is a lifetime pursuit. No one masters anything. By the way, this is the fun thing. Shohei Ohtani would say he's still mastering, you know, hitting a ball.

Right? Right.

Getting people to believe that they can learn new skills is critical in a world that is going to ask for a bunch more and offer a bunch more. And so anyone out there building a business, raising a family, if you have never taken the time to deeply learn how to learn, now's a great one. It's not too late. There's a lot more of this world to go, and it is a great time to start remembering, if you, if you can, a time where you learned a skill. Deep. People who are succeeding right now across the board, on a happiness basis, on an economic basis, are people who have attempted or achieved some degree of mastery, in part because they found a hobby that gives them exceptional extracurricular joy, and in part because they know that they can learn other things. It is the people who went to college, got a master's, got a job, and said, this is going to subsist. This is going to sustain me, and that's fine. Do I care about it? No. Do I feel like I'm uniquely good at it? No. But it works. That is no way to live one. And it also isn't going to work in this new chapter. And I tell people there's nothing more satisfying as an adult than learning a new skill. This is coming from someone who played volleyball my entire life and then picked up tennis two years ago. And I cannot tell you how much joy and pride I get from getting good at a new sport, wondering to learn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Absolutely. I think that's. And I think it's. Yeah, I think it's practical and I think it's good. We're starting to run short on time. I have to ask you this as a fun question. A total change of pace, but for our audience, I think they'd appreciate it. Zach, do you live in an hoa? And if so, are you on the board?

I live in an hoa. Can you believe it? So not only is this. Not only was I excited to tell you this, Ben, I live in an HOA of 2, and I don't want to give away my. Yeah, I don't know. I guess this is going public. I live at the top of the tallest building in Santa Barbara, and there are two homes in this building that's otherwise office space. And there are two of us in the building as part of the hoa. I won't tell you what it costs me a month. It's ridiculous. But we take extra care of the building because it's a historic site. And I go to the meetings. I'm not the chair. I provide constant feedback to the committee. And our elevators are 90 years old. It's a pretty amazing HOA that's made up mostly of people who don't live in the building somehow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a unique, truly a modern take on the community of your. Of your building. But it's there.

But we do have Sunday coffee with our upstairs neighbors who are. And it's a multi generational hoa. They are themselves grandparents of full grown kids. So we, to my wife and I, they are our de facto grandparents, as we say.

Yeah, super cool. I love it. That's awesome. Well, just. Zach, thank you. This has been a pleasure and incredible. And I loved all the topics we hit and some of what we talked about today, but also just some of the things I've learned listening to you and learning from you in general. I think a takeaway that I had is the future really isn't about will AI replace you? It's about AI freeing you or enabling you to be more human and to be more real and all the optimistic benefits that can come from that. So super fired up. I love it and I love your perspective on it. And I also do want to say, Zach, congratulations again on the release this week of your book Next Renaissance, AI and the expansion of human potential. I would be remiss if I didn't ask. Ask you to tell everyone how can they go get the book? Like, what should we know? What should we look for? Anything you want to say about the book.

For those of you in within walking distance to your bookstore, go to a local bookstore, please, please go to your local bookstore and buy it from them. I, I have. I wander into every bookstore as I walk by in Santa Barbara now. Thankfully, they, they have all stocked it and I'm randomly signing copies. I actually think that's like. I think that's like technical, technically defacing the book, but I, I hope no one.

I think that's hilarious. Do it. Sign a bunch, but go, go buy.

Go buy books from your local bookstore, and if not, go to Barnes and Noble. That's, that's, that's my simple answer. And for those of you who don't live within walking distance, or, or for those of you who don't want to drive, it's available all sorts of places online.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, congratulations. I know it's been a. A labor of love, but a labor nonetheless to get it done and get it out there. So thank you again. And for everyone else, for more insights on how Vantica is leading the connected future of community management, head over to vanica.com or follow us on LinkedIn or any of our media channels. We'd love to hear from you. I'm Ben Curran. Thanks for listening to Guilty by Association. We'll see you next time.